'Speaking of Music': Clandestination
Tom Branch is a musician from Atlanta and leader of the band Clandestination. He plays acoustic guitar and is joined by Tim Anderson on cello, Teresa Lemaire on flute, and Colin Agnew on percussion.
Branch hopes the music will “take you somewhere,” an aspiration not unrealistic given the expansive, journeying instrumental pieces created by Branch in his quartet.
He approaches composition much like storytelling, explaining, “It’s almost like I’m writing a little soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist.”
Featured track “It’s All I’ve Got to Hang Onto” travels through contemplative spaces, string-saturated and building to a skipping, airy tempo elevated by floating flute melodies. Branch explained how the song sat unfinished for years until a pivotal moment spurred him to complete it.
“A few years ago, there was a member of our local community who was killed in just a random, completely senseless, awful way, and something about that made me sit down with this guitar and finish this piece of work off. Life can be short; it can disappear at any second,” Branch reflected.
The composer’s work with Clandestination isn’t his only contribution to Atlanta music history; longtime locals may remember Branch from the band Insane Jane and many other acts since the late 1980s.
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