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File The Sweet Clementines in the “hard to classify” bin. They were born for it. Their home region, New York’s Hudson Valley, is itself a bit of a cultural puzzle, equal parts urban refugee, rifle toting hick, inner city thug and neo-hippie green. You can hear this complex energy working in the psyche-pop songs of The Sweet Clementines, with their easy, rollicking exteriors disguising a depth of musical sophistication and ambitious word craft--songs that encompass surrealist pastiche, Tin Pan Alley classicism and grad-student confessional. It’s quirky, folky, heartfelt and expertly played stuff.
The Sweet Clementines are a story of two veteran songwriters on the same page, in different books. One writes a kind of art song with nods to the hyper-musical new wave of XTC and Costello, hints of prog rock, harmonies borrowed from cabaret and tango. The other is informed by the Byrds’ country rock template, sunny Kinks-like Brit pop, and ‘60s arcania. The common threads are melodic abundance, verbal and musical wit, and a playful, irreverent grasp of various pop and rock traditions.
The Sweet Clementines play earthy (sm)art pop, with feeling.
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"Smart fun for smart people. The Sweet Clementines may pull you into unexpected pop terrain but there's a solid Beatlesque foundation underneath. Now if only all those Williamsburg hipsters would pull their heads
out of there beards and boogie..." -- Ghosty, Sirius Disorder: Channel 70
"The Sweet Clementines are my kind of band--sweet, funny, smart and melodic. They're not afraid to have a goof, but there is a strong musicality at the core of what they do. Oh yeah, and great harmonies. Long live the Clementines." --Rhett Miller, solo artist, Old 97's
"These Clementines are the musical equivalent of the small sweet globes for which they are named. Their songs are juicy and bright: lyrically driven, folky, with sonorous pop moments against a rollicking background." --Doug Muller, Ulster Publishing Almanac
"Highly entertaining and musically smart" -- Bob Margolis, The New Paltz Times
"...Wordy...more cryptic than deep...harmless rock ’n’ roll...not a hint of Satan’s thorny tail or bleeding bat heads...Standard fare...a straight-ahead interpretation of tones and their placements in a straight-ahead musical vision...[their] songs would make a high school English student smile knowingly and a hillbilly want to kick someone’s ass." --Jason Broome, Chronogram Magazine, Aug. 25, '08
"Just my kind of music." -- Nora Raleigh Baskin, author of "What Every Girl (except me) Knows" and other novels.
"I listened to it for 13 straight hours. I was stuck on a ladder." -- Amanda, waitress at infamous NP watering hole.
The Sweet Clementines edited their profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
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