Clogs (band)

Formation

When Clogs formed they were an oddball classical ensemble in indie rock clothing. Today, however, they are at the forefront of a scene including friends in groups The Books, Rachel's, and Bell Orchestre.

The band members met in the late 1990s while studying at the Yale School of Music. Newsome, born in 1961 in Alice Springs, Australia, started his career as a concert violinist in the Sydney Symphony, before a six-year detour took him to an ashram in the remote region of New South Wales. He began composing in the 1990s at the University of Adelaide, when he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that brought him to America. Dessner is an established soloist, and veteran of groups including Bang on a Can All-Stars, which has given him in contact with major figures like Philip Glass and Terry Riley. Elliott is a proud Vermonter and active freelance musician. Kozumplik is a master percussionist familiar with almost any style.

Style

Clogs' "classical" music is the result of a peculiar writing process more akin to a rock band or a jazz quartet. The members come to rehearsals with basic ideas that the group riffs on and develops in jam sessions and live performance. Newsome later arranges these ideas into elegant and complex musical narratives that meld and extend the ideas of minimalist, modernist, and romantic composers, adding sounds and melodies drawn from the folk music of India, the Jewish Diaspora, and everywhere else.

Members

Albums

EPs