LP - Claud - Me And The Music

1LP - indie clear colbalt vinyl

Does everything have to feel so heavy all the time? The 10 songs on Claud's rich and resplendent third album "Me And The Music" find the 27-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter-producer grappling with that question and coming up, triumphantly, with something close to an answer: things can be heavy, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun.

Things can be heavy, but that beer in your hand isn't - why not hold it aloft for a moment, sing along with the friends surrounding you, forget your troubles for the length of a perfect indie-pop song? "Me And The Music" lead single "She Doesn't Love Me" is, in many ways, the core of the album - a light-feeling song about what it's like to be queer and trans in America in the 2020s. When Claud wrote the song with h their friends Hank Heaven and Annie DiRusso, they felt firmly that it should be a yacht rock song; the demo ended up "lo-fi and indie" anyway.

"Me And The Music" was produced by Claud and John Congleton (Alvvays, St. Vincent) and represents a full-circle moment for Claud, who finally felt, with this record, that they were a confident enough producer to assume a co-producer role.