Catherine Clark Channels Intimacy with Her Debut Mixtape, ‘Can We Have A Conversation’.
As the war on originality in music persists, it is up to the independent artists of the world to continue to fight each battle. The answer to the conflict between virality and authenticity is intention.
Enter Catherine Clark, a self-taught singer-songwriter, performer, curator, fashion designer, and ethereal goddess who is steadily building a world of her own. Self-described as an elysian and sartorial multifaceted woman, Catherine creates because she believes she is divinely ordained to do so. A mystical wordsmith in her own right, the studio is her playground, but she’s not playing with her pen.
When she is not developing her signature sound or designing custom garments through her fashion house, Iconically Psychotic, Catherine can be found curating musical showcases to highlight underground artists and connect with her community at Night Of The Ethereals, (N.O.T.E).
Her mixtape, appropriately titled, “Can We Have A Conversation” is what she calls, “a collection of therapeutic reparations”, or conversations she has had with herself in an effort to heal beyond the surface. She hopes that listeners will use the genre-bending melodies to make peace with their own past.
“I think it’s so radically bodacious to be like this is who I am. If you don’t like it, yuck foo. And if you do like it, I appreciate you, and I hope that you also are shameless and unapologetic in everything that you do”.
You describe yourself to the world as “Elysian”, what does that mean to you?
CC: I think that I chose Elysian because when I made my song, “Alert”, when I came in, how did the lyrics go? I give a lesson in adoring such exquisite things. If I’m a part of it, it’s going to be evolutionary. Hi, I’m Catherine. Nice to meet you. Here’s the bottom line. Her brain’s prolific and is one of a kind. But I was like, oh, well, if you’re one of a kind, that means you’re elysian because elysian means to be divinely made and I think I was divinely made unlike anybody else that I’ve ever met.
Who do you listen to to enter a creative space?
CC: You know what’s crazy? I actually hate listening to other people when I am creating something. Especially when I was creating my mixtape, so many projects were coming out, right? And they’re like, “Oh my god, have you heard Whoop De Whoop?” And I’m like, “No, actually, I have not”. It would irritate me a little bit, honestly, because I’ve been writing for so long. And not even to toot my own horn, but toot toot, my pen game does go crazy. How other people get inspired by looking at other stuff. I actually get really discouraged looking at other stuff. Then it pisses me off and makes me go harder to write more things of depth and emotion and vulnerability. Because that’s what I feel more people should be inspired by.
What happened between releasing your first song, “The Verdict” and CWHAC? How did you change between projects?
CC: “The Verdict” is the first thing I ever put out. Catherine Clark wasn’t even Catherine Clark when I made “The Verdict”. I think that a lot has changed since “The Verdict”. I still think about it. I recently sang that song at an open mic on Tuesday. But I think that the Catherine Clark now for “Can We Have a Conversation” is just a sprinkle of “The Verdict”. It’s not a conversation with other people. These are all conversations with myself, and I feel like with “The Verdict”, I was having a conversation with somebody else, letting them know there’s nothing left to say after I say this, after I send this four-page letter, after I do these things literally, it’s done. But with the “Can We Have a Conversation”, it’s like, I get you, but let’s get real about it, too.
If your music was a call-to-action, what would it ask of its listeners?
CC: I feel like it would ask you to go to therapy. Even if it’s not like generic therapy. Go to something. Go to therapy within yourself. Do some shadow work, but definitely go to therapy, because all the other stuff is going to happen in the world. But if you are not right within, it doesn’t matter about what’s going on with the world, because your world appears messed up. So that will always be my call to action, because if you met me in person, I would still tell you to go to therapy.
Your fans are affectionately called Starlets. Where does the name Starlets come from? What makes a Starlet?
CC: I feel like you have to have the same aura of frequency if you’re working with me as one of my starlets. And I feel like that means you are a star in your own right because I don’t do fan activity. So, I feel like if it’s my world and they’re my world, we’re all revolving around it in the stars of my own show. So they’re my starlets. I want them to feel superior as well. I want them to go hard for me, but also go hard for themselves.
N.O.T.E is a performance based showcase to uplift underground artists, why is it important for artists to build in-person communities?
CC: Night Of The Ethereals was always the intention of intimacy and closeness and just being free in a space. I really wanted to be intimate and close-knit because every single person that has ever entered my space or come to one of my shows, I have fed them. I have given hospitality, and it’s always made them want to come back to indulge in more things, to spread word about who it is that I am. You’re learning the backstory behind my songs. I’ll tell you why I wrote this before I get into it. I have my own Genius lyrics moment. Then at the end, I have deep ciphers where I’m going even more in-depth into lore and different things that have happened to me because it makes other creatives more comfortable to do that as well.
When Catherine Clark comes up in conversation what’s something you want people to take away?
CC: First, I want them to be, like, “Damn, shorty is dope”. Then I want them to be, like, “She makes me feel things that I really try to not feel”. I want you to listen to me or see what it is that I do or see my art, and it takes you out of your comfort zone every single time. Or makes you want to jig, but also takes you out of your comfort zone.
What are you focused on?
CC: I’m focused on balance, but the balance of doing things that I want to do, like creating projects, but also my spiritual knowledge. I know that I’m my ancestors’ wildest dreams, right? I do all these things and I’m able to execute these gifts for the world and raise the frequency of the universe. But I think I also need to be more intentional about getting more in tune with all of my spiritual knowledge that I really want to indulge in, in order for my creativity to reach even higher peaks than I could have anticipated, because they go hand in hand for me.
Follow @sheiscatherine.clark and @ iconicallypsychoticltd.co on Instagram to keep up with Catherine Clark. “Can We Have A Conversation” is available to stream on all platforms.
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