'Better Now' Single Launch by Award-Winning Cellist
Better Now - Monique Clare
Award-winning Australian cellist and singer-songwriter Monique Clare launches her shimmering and triumphant new single 'Better Now' with a set of six intimate shows. With lyrics that speak to a journey through mental health, these shows comprise a set of songs with BIG feelings: love, heartache, rage, the loss of loved ones, healing and golden moments of peace. Bring all your feelings that are too big to carry alone, and let's celebrate them here.
Monique Clare has taught cello in Afghanistan, toured internationally as a member of The Maes, jumped onstage as a hired gun for Kate Miller-Heidke and Eminem, and led audiences up dark mountainsides for sunrise concerts.
Amidst all this Monique continues to evolve into one of Australia’s most creative and musically inventive artists.
Offering another taste from her much-anticipated debut album, Monique’s new single ‘Better Now’ is a shimmering and triumphant celebration of evolving through a painful time into a healthier headspace.
Delicately orchestrated with layers of strings, trumpets, drums and voices, the Brisbane-born cellist and singer-songwriter is establishing her unique sound within the landscape of Australian music.
The release of the track heralds a new chapter for the artist herself, having spent the pandemic straddling a life between two countries and fighting for a long-distance relationship amidst a tightly shut international border.
“When the pandemic hit, I was suddenly shut off from my career and my partner, which were the biggest pillars of my identity. I came so close to quitting music and breaking off the relationship, but somehow I’ve made it to the other side with both still in tact. It feels so right to be releasing this track, which celebrates making it through something tough and taking steps to get to the right place, now that I feel like I’ve got my life back.
Having said that, I feel like it’s important to say that this song is not about getting better in some permanent, static way. Sometimes I can’t stand performing this song live because it feels so fraudulent. If I’ve hit rock bottom again emotionally, I can’t bring myself to sing that I’m ‘better now’. But I want people to know that it’s normal and okay to keep moving through those cycles of better and worse. Maybe this song can be a reminder of that.”
Driven to continue evolving an open conversation around mental health, she’s touring this single alongside a set of songs that speak to emotions “too big to feel alone”: from love, heartache, healing, rage, the loss of loved ones, to golden moments of peace.
‘Better Now’ is the fourth song to be released from Monique’s forthcoming album ‘Sight’ which was crowdfunded in 2020 by 250 people from around the world.
An ever active and constantly searching and evolving artist, Monique recently represented her country by performing at the Australian pavilion in Dubai for the World Expo in November 2021.
Earlier that year, she was selected by Sounds Australia to participate in Global Music Match, a collaborative program between artists and festival directors around the world.
A constantly active 2021 also saw Monique invited by Folk Music Canada to co-write and release a single with Metis Nation country artist Amanda Rheaume. ‘I’ve Been Gone’ was featured on major Apple music playlists and has received consistent airplay on Sirius XM in the US.
She was the 2017 Folk Alliance Australia’s Young Artist of the Year, going on to showcase at Folk Alliance International in 2018 and 2019.
Better Now is a big, triumphant celebration of getting to a good place in your life. But while the words “better now” make this sound like I’m talking about some kind of permanent, lasting change, I think it’s important to say that’s not what I mean at all. Sometimes I struggle to perform this song, because I feel so far from where I was when I wrote it. Yeah, I got to a good place, but now I’m back at rock bottom. Instead, I want this song to be a reminder that things do come round. Bad relationships, broken brain chemistry and pandemics can be overcome by making bold, empowering decisions, talking it over with friends, therapy, maybe medication, time passing, a change of scene…whatever it is or has been for you. And then you’ll face the next challenge that you have to resolve. Sometimes that feels like failure, like ending up back where you started. But it can also feel like a natural cycle, or like levelling up in a game. These days I get less worried when I fall back into a mode of apathy, anxiety or depression, because I know it’ll pass and I’ll get back to feeling “better now” soon!
Saturday 27 August, 8pm
The Little Poet, Byron Bay
$20 entry
Supported by JESA
https://www.moniqueclare.com/tour