Clara is a studio album by Canadian composer and record producer Scott Morgan under the pseudonym Loscil. It was released on May 28, 2021, through Kranky. It received universal acclaim from critics.
The sounds on Clara are sourced from a 3-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest, Hungary, that was lathe-cut onto a 7-inch record. Loscil "scratched and abused" it, and then sampled and shaped the sounds from it to create the album. A music video was released for the album's song "Vespera". The album was released on May 28, 2021, through Kranky.
Loscil later released Lux Refractions (2021), a photo book accompanied by a CD containing tracks created from the same source as Clara.
Ben Devlin of MusicOMH commented that "Clara is a supremely accomplished record, and deserves to sit with previous career highlights like Submers and Monument Builders as a masterclass in abstract electronica." Daniel Sylvester of Exclaim! stated, "At a protracted 70 minutes, Morgan's latest may be a bit too arduous for its foundation, but Loscil has always been an artist unafraid to exhaust an idea to its fullest, and Clara proves this in spades."
Justin Vellucci of PopMatters called the album "a beguiling work that toys with space between light and shadow while touching on themes of space and gravity as all-encompassing and inspiring as the universe itself." Heather Phares of AllMusic stated, "While the album's source material is somewhat different than usual, the results are still unmistakably Loscil." She added, "A beautifully nuanced work, Clara is both revealing and mysterious -- and Loscil fans wouldn't expect anything less."
Credits adapted from liner notes.