South London-based multidisciplinary artist Clara Mann whispers the secrets of the universe through fey folk songs. You’ll hear and envision: the stirrings of ghosts, will-o’-the-wisps, shadows dancing, and eternity beckoning. These bewitching and weightless songs are prayers sculpted by the wind, which you can walk through like a door. Lyrically, Mann sings as if delivering a sentence to a friend to see their reaction. Yet the words are also for her to assimilate, to feel, to mold, as if listening to someone speak with her voice. Within these folk idioms reside heaven and hell, pulling Mann in opposite directions to truth.
Along with Kiki Cavazos, Natalie Wildgoose, Daisy Rickman, and Juni Habel, Mann is one of the most arresting contemporary folk musicians. Great artists are conversant with the history of their art, which Mann undoubtedly is: last year she recorded “500 Miles”, often attributed to Hedy West, in which every mile is counted and felt in Mann’s poignant voice, a valedictory plea to an absent lover, bolstered by briskly fingerpicked acoustic guitar and Owen Spafford’s see-sawing country fiddle.
Whether it’s Cynthia Gooding, Jean Ritchie, or, let’s say, another folk musician, Jeannie Robertson, the songs move through them as if they have little or no say in the matter. Although the auteur, Mann delivers folk tunes as if they are singing to her, telling her where to go or whom to be, a mask in exchange for a visage. Yes, Mann evokes an older generation of folk musicians: British singers Molly Drake and June Tabor.
Mann’s artistry possesses a great depth and maturity, if only in the way she lets a lyric twist and float in the air before snapping it back. Sometimes, Mann elongates or elides syllables, sidestepping syntactical meaning for emotion. However, the lyrics are equally important. Mann is a detailed writer through both descriptions and ellipses. For instance, the former appears in “Fortuna”, where Mann conveys her character’s state of mind through the imagery of “cigarette in the rain”.
At the start of 2025, Mann released her debut album, Rift, a collection of unadorned folk songs in which a narrator travels with them as much as they travel with her. Put differently, the narrator takes a car journey along rain-streaked country lanes, reflecting on the road behind as much as the one ahead in the pursuit of self-discovery, reinvention, and freedom.
Wishbone, Clara Mann’s sophomore album, is different from Rift. Whereas the latter is a solo affair (Mann strumming her rough-hewn acoustic guitar like a good ol’ folk troubadour, a trouvère, in fact), the former is recorded with a band, providing snare-brushed drums, lachrymose violin, and an occasional banjo. Mann benefits from the varied instrumentation and cordial production, which bring her sparing arrangements to life. Furthermore, Mann’s piano playing comes into its own on Wishbone, where sorrow hangs between notes, lingers like an unshakable dream, and spreads itself like the melancholy of winter light.
Paradoxically, Wishbone feels more and less personal, with Mann oscillating between the two. She is comfortable in honoring folk’s rich tradition of masks while telling emotionally true stories. Should I say that this is a hopeful record about falling in love? Yet it is not mawkish; blood pours from this LP. Undoubtedly, Mann’s growth as a musician is discernible on Wishbone, a step up from her previous record; it is bolder and more confident, as if the compositions are imbued with self-knowing assurance. You’re hearing from a musician who understands their craft more than they naturally did before.
Clara Mann’s songwriting is more efficient and direct on Wishbone, without losing ambiguity or poetry, perhaps due to the country influence. In fact, Mann’s laconic songs are replete with country idioms and imagery, as in “News From Home”. In any case, Wishbone is a collection of hopeful prayers Mann sends to the heavens, only to watch them descend. Over minor-key piano ballads, Mann sings with a daring conviction, imparting her love to the wind, answered like a refrain.
In the acoustic-guitar fingerpicked opener, “Fortuna”, supported by mournful strings, a narrator misses a lover while on a coach ride home through a city at night. What the hell? Has Mann received a driving ban? The first two tracks are not vastly different from Rift, especially the imagery of the narrator wearing her lover’s shirt in “Go Getter”, which mirrors Rift’s “Remember Me (Train Song)”. That said, the two songs are far more sanguine than anything on Mann’s debut record.
The most noticeable shift is in the titular track, “Wishbone”, where Mann sings in a lower vocal register, as if Mann is singing through Fiona Apple or Apple is singing through her. Soon Mann draws out words, pulls them apart, and turns them over to find a hidden meaning, as if the lyrics themselves get in the way of a greater truth: language is inadequate to feelings.
The apogee of Wishbone, “Oblivion”, is a haunting existential ballad. The plangent acoustic guitar strumming in the intro—conjuring a world of memories, desire, and love—will make you weep. Or what about the David Lindley-esque country fiddle, which brays with a Sisyphus-esque heaviness? Or, finally, how about Mann stretching the word “stars”?
The opening acoustic guitar of “I’m Everyone Who’s Ever Said I Love You” immediately brings to mind Townes Van Zandt. Yet the biting, cynical lyrics are the real highlight; the narrator implies she is one of many who have said, “I love you”. She throws the lyric at her lover like a silver dagger. Suddenly, Mann is Bob Dylan circa 1965. Who wouldn’t want to be Dylan in 1965? Dylan in 2026.
While the country-laced “News From Home” is rhythmically subdued with snare-brushed drums, “All My Devotion” is carried along by Clara Mann’s Joan Baez-esque vocals, complemented by infectious backing vocals, violin, and banjo. Yes, Mann’s lithe voice is unparalleled. With her diction, words give shape to memories, or memories endow shape to words. Either way, Mann’s supple voice directs the mise-en-scène like a filmmaker.
Therefore, Mann holds down narratives that could easily slip away from her with the wrong vocal intonation or timbre. Moreover, Mann renders old-timey tunes through her own aesthetic. The result: life feeling closer to a dream, a reverie, an indeterminate realm, where you open your eyes and see nothing; close your eyes and see everything.
“Connie’s Song”, a title name-checking the acerbic folk musician Connie Converse, who disappeared in the 1970s, is another highlight. Here, Mann sings over a jaunty acoustic-guitar melody, including string squeaks, backed by a faint bass drum. Above all, though, the melodic ascent into the choruses, for instance, when she gets to “loneliness”, flaws you with its sophisticated beauty.
The chanson-esque “Song For Joy” makes you feel as if you are drifting, unmoored from time, arriving at a feeling that elapses meaning, which could be joy itself, or the preliminary act to joy; in any case, it hits. Lastly, Mann finds a beautiful mot juste: “when I listen for music in you”. “Video Games” acts as an epilogue, a summation of Wishbone: the narrator is content to watch her lover play video games.
On Wishbone, Clara Mann has expanded her musical palette, followed her artistic intuition, and hasn’t avoided risks, like falling in love. Indeed, Wishbone posits that even if love isn’t predicated on chance, it doesn’t lose its poetic appeal; conversely, that is why love is poetry: it chooses you.