CLAUD ANNOUNCES DEBUT ALBUM SUPER MONSTER OUT 12 FEBRUARY 2021+ SHARES NEW SINGLE ‘SOFT SPOT’
Photo Credit: Jeremy Reynoso
"Claud’s frustration with the ending of a relationship comes through not just in their fatigued vocal delivery, but also the misty harmonies and dream pop-esque guitar leads that float atop its striking bassline."
- CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND
“invitingly open and affably relatable bedroom pop”
- NME
“We’re not crying, you’re crying.”
- WONDERLAND
"It's intimate and detailed but with wide-stretching reliability that makes it feel like a warm embrace in a time of need, using bubbly hooks to grab you and draw you in, only for them to disguise heavier themes that keep you coming back for that cathartic release time and time again."
- PILERATS
LA based artist Claud has today announced their forthcoming debut album Super Monster will be released on 12 February 2021 via Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records (an imprint of Dead Oceans). Coupled with the album news, Claud has revealed a second cut from the record and follow up to ‘Gold’, with their new single ‘Soft Spot’.
Claud says of ‘Soft Spot’, ‘… Sigh. I have a soft spot for lots of people, places, and things. This song is about knowing I can’t be with this one specific person, but my feelings won’t go away… I still hope I run into them, or they randomly text me about something. It’s just me romanticizing what I can’t have and being like “but what if…”’
The album, Super Monster, is a story of lost and found loves, self-discovery and self-definition. Here, sad endings smash into happy ones, little moments get planetary-big, and our hero, the Super Monster, finds their voice through life’s trials and twists. Like the best and most timeless superhero stories, Super Monster is a tale of transcending being misunderstood, both in love and in life. It’s also one hell of a debut album. Pre-order HERE.
Super Monster is 13 songs of irresistible charm and a vertiginous but joyous coming-of-age reckoning with young love. A skilled lyricist with an extraordinary gift for writing infectious melodies, Claud sees relationships as games of endless wonder, intrigue and second-guesses; a roller-coaster thrilling you, even when it’s terrifying. From beginning to end, the sparkling tunes capture the assorted stages of a relationship’s delight and dejection - the giddy sensation of a first kiss, the heartsick longing of a pending rejection and the reluctant call for a requisite breakup. The first single from the album, ‘Gold', was released to widespread acclaim in October.
Standing at 5 feet tall with green and blue hair (hair color subject to change), 21-year old Claud Mintz is a prolific and industrious talent. The first signing to Phoebe Bridgers’ new label imprint Dead Oceans (Saddest Factory), Claud has been stealthily releasing impressively agile pop songs for the last two years including the much lauded ‘Wish You Were Gay’ (which has accumulated 4 million streams since its release), ‘Miss You’ and ‘Never Meant To Call’.
First recording as Toast in 2018, with their best college friend Joshua Mehling at Syracuse University, Claud’s early string of track releases were immediately impressive. The band was casual but enthusiastic and Claud would spend whatever time remained between classes writing to beats, eventually opting to leave Syracuse to focus on music. Life and output became feverish and more than 50 songs emerged during that brief span.
In early 2020, Claud sorted through those dozens of pieces, whittling them down to the baker’s dozen that now shape Super Monster, and headed home to New York to record at Electric Lady Studios with a wide network of close friends and new collaborators. Joshua Mehling played on and co-produced several tracks and the old friends were joined by Claire Cottrill (aka Clairo), Melanie Faye, Blu DeTiger, Noa Getzug, Nick Hakim and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jake Portrait.
The album’s artwork is a self-portrait by Claud and serves not just as album art, but as superhero mascot. Upon finishing a long day at Electric Lady, the studio owner uncovered and shared an as-yet-unpublished drawing by the late, great Daniel Johnston depicting a person leaping triumphantly from the surrounding grass. It was titled “Claud and the Super Monster” and, for Claud, the drawing and title depicted perfectly how the undefinable is often viewed as monstrous when it is in fact, freeing, even ascendant. Misunderstood, maybe, but also imbued with superpowers. The album’s working title was quickly usurped and the Super Monster was born.
CLAUD
SUPER MONSTER IS OUT 12 FEB 2021 - AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER VIA SADDEST FACTORY/DEAD OCEANS (VIA INERTIA)
'SOFT SPOT' IS OUT NOW
‘GOLD’ IS OUT NOW
MORE INFO
WEB
INSTAGRAM
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
SPOTIFY
APPLE MUSIC
YOUTUBE
TIK TOK
AMAZON MUSIC
SaddestFactoryRecords.com
