Phantom of Aleppoville

"Phantom of Aleppoville" is a song composed by English artist Benjamin Clementine. It his first new music since his debut album at At Least for Now. The song was written, recorded and produced by Clementine and follows his January 2017 collaboration with Gorillaz on "Hallelujah Money".^[1] Accompanied by a video shot by photographer Craig McDean and filmmaker Masha Vasyukova,^[2] Clementine composed "Phantom of Aleppoville" after being affected by the writing of pioneering British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott.^[3] He wrote extensively about children who have experienced bullying in the home and at school, discovering that while the trauma was naturally not comparable in scale to that suffered by children displaced by war, its effects followed similar patterns. Seeing in Winicott's writing a mirror of his own childhood experiences, Clementine chose the title – the "little city of Aleppo" – to symbolise a place where children encounter such bullying. Says Clementine, "Aleppoville is a place where many are bullied if not all, but no one understands nor see why; Phantom."^[4]

Personnel

• Benjamin Clementine – music and production
• Alexis Brossard – drums
• Max Anstruther - recording engineer
• Wes Maebe - recording engineer
• Steve Sedgwick – recording engineer and mixer
• John Davis – mastering engineer

References