Clara Benin is touted as the indie darling of the Philippines. Her signature angelic voice and melodic acoustic guitar playing bring a kind of serenity that her listeners gravitate towards.
Widely loved for her warm and quiet demeanor, the acoustic-folk artist has played in notable festivals like Wanderland Arts and Music Festival in the Philippines, Music Matters in Singapore, Zandari Festa in South Korea, and SXSW in Sydney.
Clara finds the courage to embrace self-acceptance in the face of adversity on her sophomore studio album, Befriending My Tears. The introspective record serves as the follow-up release to 2020’s Fragments, a 5-track EP that maps out different seasons of her life during the pre-pandemic days.
Most recently, she released really got me thinking, a tender collection of love songs that captures the softer, reflective side of romance.
Working with other artists such as Lola Amour, One Click Straight, and Dane Hipolito on countless love songs and collaborations, there remains an unmistakable quality to her music that feels inward and personal. “I’m not much of a performer,” she tells Rolling Stone Philippines. “I’m not much of a singer even. I really think I’m a songwriter first before all of those things.” This self-awareness speaks to Benin’s longevity. Looking back on her material forced her to confront the version of herself that first picked up a guitar, and in doing so arrived at the kind of artist she wants to be now. She describes the songwriting process as grounding, something that made her more intentional in being vulnerable.