Claud - Me and the Music (Clear Cobalt Vinyl)

Claud returns with Me and the Music, their third album and first full-length in three years, recorded at New York’s Electric Lady Studios and produced by Claud with John Congleton. The record follows 2023’s Supermodels and finds the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and producer deliberately loosening the grip of seriousness, making space for humour, playfulness and the simple pleasure of making songs with friends.

The ten-track album grew from a shift in perspective. After realising how much earlier work had been shaped by one relationship, Claud began writing toward a less burdened version of themselves. The title track became a turning point: a song about refusing to let the past spoil the joy of music itself. That spirit runs throughout the record, which moves through new romance, inside jokes, anxiety, queer and trans experience, and the strange details of everyday American life without losing its melodic lift.

Me and the Music was made collaboratively. Hank Heaven and Annie DiRusso contributed to key writing sessions, while longtime collaborator Dan Nigro returns on The Legend. Claud’s confidence as a producer is also central to the album, with the arrangements balancing indie-pop immediacy, dream-pop atmosphere and sharper studio detail. She Doesn’t Love Me pairs a driving, almost yacht-rock impulse with heavier emotional subject matter, while I Owe You leans into a warmer, devotional road-song feel.

This limited edition is pressed on Clear Cobalt vinyl. It captures Claud at a point where sincerity and fun no longer feel opposed: a bright, emotionally alert indie-pop record about growing up, letting go and allowing music to be joyful again.