Clear Day, featuring the Metropole Orkest is the most ambitious, challenging and rewarding musical project I've done to date. It's incredibly special to me because it's a collaboration between myself and my partner in life and music, Steve Webster, and because the musicla journey tells a personal story. Today is an exciting day for me because the album reverts back fully to my label, Empress Music, where we can introduce it to a wider audience via Believe Digital. I'm really proud of the music we made on this album, and very grateful to the 100+ musicians, engineers, studio technicians, arrangers, copyists... that lent their skills to bringing this story to life! Emilie-Claire
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Clear Day has been critically acclaimed by reviewers. Canadian music writer Kerry Doole wrote that Barlow's talents "coalesce to stunning effect on Clear Day, the most ambitious offering yet in a prolific discography".
The CBC's Melody Lau wrote that Clear Day is "a gamble that pays off when she cleverly pulls a mélange of folk and rock staples into the realm of orchestration."
Christophe Rodriguez of Montreal's Sorties Jazz Nights wrote that Barlow "seems to have reached another level" and that "she crafts her albums like a precision watchmaker"
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke of the WholeNote wrote "... this recording is a portrait of the artist as a mature women poised at the full apex of her skill, talent, inspiration and power."
Clear Day is a mélange of folk and rock staples with songs by artists spanning all genres and time periods, from Brad Mehldau to Coldplay. The album is a narrative with each song telling part of Emilie-Claire's personal story over a period of several years -- "Each song represents my state of mind, a turning point, a crossroad, ...The important thing was that the song needed to convey that particular moment in time." The record also features a 70-piece Metropole Orkest, expanded from the usual 52 piece line up and conducted by Jules Buckley.
The album was produced and arranged by Steve Webster (bassist) and Emilie-Claire Barlow with orchestration by the duo as well as three orchestrations by Shelly Berger and two orchestrations by John Metcalfe (composer) arranger for Peter Gabriel's New Blood Orchestra, and arranging by guitarist Reg Schwager. Webster and Barlow were honoured with a nomination for Producer of the Year at the 2015 Juno Awards, and the album took home the Juno for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year.
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