The Clientele - The Violet Hour

Released 7th November 2025

Following the breakthrough success of Suburban Light, the 2001 collection of The Clienteles initial singles and EPs, tastemakers and aficionados were eager to hear what the trio of Alasdair MacLean (guitars, vocals), Mark Keen (drums,piano), and James Hornsey (bass) could make if set loose inside a studio to record a full-length album. What they emerged with from Londons Medina Road Studios in the fall of 2002 was tantalizing: Their already sharply realizedmotif of 60s psychedelia and modern fuzz-pop took on inflections of jazz, particularly in how the space afforded by the LP format allowed for a keener articulation of atmosphere.

The Clientele stretch the early evening of The Violet Hour out infinitely, manipulating the structured time of the pop song the way poets manipulate the structure of languageto capture place, mood, stray thoughts, disappointments, potential, and, above all, longing. It is a shimmering