By NOEL MURPHY
GEELONG songbird Younis Clare has a zany knack for lyrics, demonstrated in her unusal latest offering, I Love You Like Kanye Loves Kanye.
Her knack for writing makes Clare’s music accessible. She regularly receives feedback that her lyrics strike a chord with listeners who’ve experienced the same feelings she sings about.
But an issue she hasn’t penned yet is a poignant situation facing her mum, which has become part of a plea that Clare’s put out to fans and supporters before tonight’s gig at Geelong’s freshly re-opened Workers Club.
“It’s super last-minute because my mum is having brain surgery and will lose the hearing in one ear,” she said.
“She’s asked to hear me play in stereo one last time.”
Clare is a folk-pop troubadour with silver lyrics and a nightingale’s voice. Tonight’s gig will be her first show back in Geelong for a few years and a homecoming of sorts for a musician who’s not only been globetrotting but through the wars in the interim.
Clare was incapacitated for the better part of two years when she lost the use of an arm to a painful and debilitating thoracic nerve injury. Living in London at the time, she found herself house-bound and miserable for lengthy periods.
She rallied, in time, with the assistance of acupuncture after exhausting traditional medical efforts. The hiatus had left her musically bereft, so Clare has welcomed her return to singing, songwriting, guitar-playing and performing.
She cites a broad range of influences to her writing, among them Ry Cooder, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne, Martha Wainwright and Jarvis Cocker, but her style has a unique tenor.
The former Port Campbell girl’s earlier musical exposure brought its own colouring, too: Irish folk, surf rock, hanging with the Brian Jonestown Massacre lads at LA’s Laurel Canyon, creative arts at Melbourne University, boarding at Geelong College. .
Clare will play The Workers Club with guests Rach Brennan and Nigel Wearne.
