Clara Benin is sleeping better now. On a Zoom call earlier this year, the singer-songwriter proudly shared how she’s finally back to getting her eight hours of sleep. As a self-admitted lola (grandmother), she was never really much of a night owl to begin with.
But when the whole world was forced to stay still, Benin found herself tossing and turning in bed. The laws of science state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. And so she made music in her bedroom.
The first few months of the pandemic was filled with pin drop silence. The local music industry was paralyzed with venues closed and gigs canceled. As a result, Benin found herself crafting her own space.
“I had all the equipment, like I had the interface and all the stuff that you need for a home studio, but lagi siyang nakatabi lang sa room ko (they were tucked away in the corners of my room). I never really gave it time. It’s just there in case I need it. But during the pandemic, I really put it out,” Benin says when asked about how the pandemic affected her creative process. “I feel like one of the things that kept me sane was just waking up and seeing my workstation ready.”
It didn’t take long for Benin to fill in the silence. Her single “It’s Okay” was a friendly reminder to pause and recalibrate. The singer-songwriter even found the time to revisit some old favorites. fragments was an EP that took bits and pieces of her past and gave them a new sound—even getting Singaporean singer-songwriter Charlie Lim to lend his vocals for “Wine”.
And with new spaces and new habits, new projects follow.
One project started with an unexpected message from Singapore. “With Gentle Bones, we’ve never met. And then his team just emailed me one day. It felt so random—well, for me. I thought, ‘What? Gentle Bones wants to collab?’” Benin shares with a slight giggle. “I didn’t even know he knew my music because I’ve also been listening to his music for quite a while now.”
When lockdowns forced us to stay indoors and social distancing kept us six feet apart, “One Day at a Time” was the warm hug we all needed. It was comfort and reassurance in the form of Gentle Bones’ jazz-inflections and Benin’s gentle vocals. This track was a change of scenery for Benin. “They want to write something that’s uplifting and very positive, so I was like, ‘Game!’ I’m super game for that so it was fun because it’s a whole new different genre for me.”
The track was one of Benin’s first collaborations with a Southeast Asian artist, but it certainly won’t be her last. In 2021, she became one of the first Filipinos to sign with Sony Music’s Southeast Asian record label OFFMUTE.
To reach out to the rest of the Southeast Asian market, OFFMUTE pitched the idea of translating one of Benin’s songs. From her repertoire of fan favorites, Benin chose to translate “Tila” to Bahasa Indonesia.
“I chose ‘Tila’ because I feel like it’s a very simple love song. I mean, you know, if I translated ‘Parallel Universe’ I feel like it wouldn’t translate well.” There’s nothing more universally understood than yearning after all.
Despite the new music and projects, Benin still found herself unable to sleep. “There are things that keep me up at night / I don’t know why, I don’t know why,” Benin laments in the chorus of her latest single “blink.” The sleeplessness turned out to be more than just lockdown lethargy.
The night has a cruel way of making us remember–specifically, hyper fixate. In the time between going to bed and falling asleep, nostalgia creeps in. “I think there’s just something about the feeling of knowing that everyone around you is asleep and you’re the only one awake,” Benin explains.
You know, all the lights are turned off. It just feels quieter, and you can hear your thoughts more.” There’s a reason why we fall prey to vulnerability at night. Without all the background noise, we’re left to wonder about what was and what could have been.
Benin explores this conflict in her latest single. “blink” starts with what we’ve all come to know and love: an acoustic guitar and Benin’s silvery, smokey voice. Her meditation on memory eventually crescendos as percussion, string sections, and vocal harmonies join her. It’s a sound that Benin says would be present in her upcoming album. Musician Gabba Santiago and producer The Ringmaster also joined the sleepless singer to create this fuller atmosphere.
Director and Benin’s good friend Josh Elefan also adds another layer to the lead single from her upcoming album. The music video feels like a lucid dream. With Benin in the middle of a beach with nothing but a bed and a nightstand, we see memory permeate reality. It’s a scene that’s reminiscent of Michel Gondry’s cult classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As his psyche slowly shatters, Jim Carrey’s Joel finds himself in a snow-covered bed in the middle of the beach where he first met Kate Winslet’s Clementine.
The film has a simple premise: Given the chance, would you want to forget? After discovering that Clementine had her memories of him erased, Joel decides to undergo the same experimental procedure and forget. It’s a handsome offer—to let go, to move on, to go to bed without the tossing and turning. Nights would become much quieter if we could simply just forget.
However, the singer-songwriter presents an alternative. The song ends its chorus with a volta: “In a blink of an eye / This could all be gone / So, I take my time / And just have fun.”
Photographer — Marvin Conanan
When asked whether she would choose to forget, Benin answers with a sense of acceptance and closure. “After writing ‘blink’ during the pandemic, I was able to process all these thoughts and emotions that I’ve just been sweeping under the [rug]. I’d say that, you know, I went through those things for a reason, and it’s made me who I am today. It’s cheesy, but you get it?”
Benin is choosing to remember. Her body of work is a love letter to our experiences and the parallel universe that they store. “There are so many possibilities that can happen. And I love the uncertainty of life in that sense, right? I feel like I’m always going to be writing about it. I’m always going to wonder about the what ifs of life. It’s beautiful.” For Benin, nostalgia is a visitor that is most welcome.
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