Dedicated to Clayton
When the unthinkable happens, everything stops, even the music. The other half of Hope Street House, Clayton McDonald, unexpectedly died of illness in mid-2023. Sara’s partner in love, music and extraordinary friendship.
‘As I walk towards something new, I feel the pain of every step, with and without you’
In April 2024 Sara releases ‘Song for Clayton’. The music has started again. They were working on this instrumental a few months before he died. To go back there was a dangerous walk and stumble into the dark of insurmountable grey and emptiness. And then the 12 years of songs from their band Hope Street, that holds so many stories.
The music, coupling in sonic and gentle waves, brings the presence of our love and collaboration; his voice, his skin and his words, like beautiful salvaged pieces from a shipwreck.
‘Hope Street House was and still is a collaboration of the heart’
The chatter, sketches of melodies, ideas, sparks, quarter ideas, no ideas, trashy ideas. Moments of humour, learning, frustration and fixing, talking, mixing, smoothing, chaotic rhythms, disagreements, symbiosis, push, patch and play – accordant, exacting and velvety warm, in a terrain of love, fun, dancing and cooking.
Hope Street House was and is – Sara’s composition, piano and vocals. Was, Clayton’s mixing, mastering, artwork, ideas and publishing. Beginning in 2020 in Canberra.
‘For you Clayton, in an infinite nowhere time and in vivid memory of everything that was exquisitely you’
Sara Vancea was born in Melbourne, Australia. As a small girl she discovered the vortex-like suction of music. At the age of 7, a friend of the family donated a piano and it was placed in her bedroom as there was nowhere else for it to go. Soon she was making a lot of noise by lifting the piano top and pressing down on the sustain pedal while playing the keys. Six months later the piano was sold and without the piano she would imagine tunes on her teeth by clicking them together in rhythms and imagining ascending and descending notes. Her childhood was full of many disruptions but at 12 she set off on her bicycle with her little dog Fred in the front basket and a tent and a sleeping bag. She almost rode to Sydney. Sara is the real-life person behind the character ‘the girl’ in the cult movie ‘Dogs in Space’. She was 15 when she lived in that group house in Berry Street, Richmond. The Post punk era of angst, music and refuge.
Sara moved to Canberra and became part of a chaotic and somewhat anarchic theatre and music scene. She began singing her songs and playing guitar, and then later joined the band Filthy Lucre. This was a turning point. She feels honored to have collaborated with such talented musicians; the late Jon Nix, Greg Walker, Kevin White and Lindsay Dunbar. She was also involved in the contemporary theatre company ‘Splinters’ and her band performed in a bus depot.
Clayton McDonald grew up in Brisbane, Australia. He sang in the school choir, was concussed playing football and excelled in everything, everywhere. He studied dentistry for 3 years and dropped out to study Chinese medicine and massage. He began a radio show at 4ZZZ and played drums in local grunge punk bands. He was involved in left politics and activism at a time of peak police corruption in Qld. His father, Morris, was a Train Guard and played the black keys on the piano while kicking a large floor drum with his foot. He would play at community dance halls in remote towns of Queensland and Betty, Clayton’s Mum, would dance.
‘Hope Street House exists in the love and memory of that extraordinary human Clayton, who lives in my heart’.
Sara is based in Sunshine Coast, Queensland and receives Australian radio airplay and airplay in the UK and USA. The playlist of the songs Ulterior Kinetic (2020), Lilly Pilly Python (2021), Strange Angel (2021), Viridian Sanctuary (2022 – vocals), Somatic Mind (2022), Aqueous Air (2022), Sensory Empathy (2022), Uncanny Chasm (2023), World Mesh (2023 – vocals), Song for Clayton (2024), Amplitude of Nadir (2024),The Mutualists (2024), Disintegration Alley (2024), and For the love of Clayton (2025).
Heart Node – preview
Waterway – preview