Cloudbelly | Interview | New Album, ‘i know i know i know’
An indie folk project Cloudbelly releases ‘i know i know i know’ via Strange Library Records.
Meaningful change necessitates understanding. We move through life navigating all sorts of elevations, but when we find ourselves in the pitfalls, the only way out is working through them – giving in but not giving up, no matter how arduous and anxiety-inducing the efforts may be. Through these twisting times, great pain and great peace travel hand-in-hand for unknown lengths until they agree to arrive at the never-ending destination: Growth. These themes and more are presented in earnest by western Massachusetts group Cloudbelly on their newest release, ‘i know i know i know’.
Cloudbelly is an indie folk project cloaked in atmospheric soundscapes consisting of Corey Laitman (songwriting, vox, guitar), Sam Perry “SVIP” (guitar, ambience), Nate Mondschein “Best Mann” (drums, production, many other sounds), and Reed Sutherland (bass, keys, arrangement). The group finds themselves in a cohesively ethereal form crafting hammocks made of only the most apt and sturdy timbres to support an album centered around processing and healing from emotional trauma, largely from Corey’s personal struggles stemming from the combustion of two close relationships. The darkness that comes with tackling something so monumental broods and builds from the start on the intro track ‘Bird In Your Throat,’ an instrumental swell of tumultuous tones folded into sonorous strings that burst forth onto the next track, ‘Fascinated’. Like a wounded battlecry of hard-fought victory, guitar screams throughout the track in glory while Corey’s patient and steadfast acoustic guitar sits beside Nate’s frenetic percussion in harmony. Reed’s disciplined yet emotive basswork and keys provide the roots for this stalwart elm tree of sound that rises to the canopy that is Corey’s voice, their gossamer tones blooming and receding in natural cadence until intentionally cut short when the subject “needs a minute”. All of this gathered from just the first full track of music with eight left to go should clue one in that this is not an album intended for a drive-by glance – dive head-first and explore its darkness and depth, as these are not fleeting strengths. Tasteful restraint is at play throughout as well, like on the much more subdued ‘Garbage,’ a forbearing ambient folk piece centered around Corey’s voice and guitars. As the track steadily advances, flickers of sampled voices haunt the stereo field while the ambience escalates before it all crashes back into a placid end back where it started.
Not a track goes by without the thought that every step of the way was meticulously pieced together through natural trial and error before the band decided, “Yes, that’s what we needed here.” Tonally, emotionally, and performatively, each song is right with itself, just as Corey has gotten right with themself in the only way humans can: Through understanding after meaningful change. That does not mean understanding everything of course, just constantly striving to understand more about oneself and the world around them through both triumph and turbulence.
With the vast amount of dedication and perfectionism to these tones and performances on the record, it makes one curious how it will be recreated live. Thankfully, those curiosities can possibly be sated with Cloudbelly embarking on tour immediately after the album’s release, starting in Brooklyn, NY on the 23rd of February. Be sure to check the band’s website to see how close they will be traveling to you. Until then, stream and enjoy this gorgeous, concerted effort to process grief and change through the honest and stunning work of the four members of Cloudbelly on this release, ‘i know i know i know’.
“That’s been a whole journey”
You folks have a seemingly seamless sound (or at least make it sound that way). How long have you all been playing together, and what is your songwriting process like? Who adds what when and how does it all come together?
Hey thanks. We’ve actually not been playing together very long at all – Sam and I began collaborating two and a half years ago, Nate came in a few months afterwards. Reed and I had been working together for years on other material, so while we’d developed a bedrock of familiarity with one another’s styles, playing together in this particular arrangement was as new as the group is old.
Process talk: Generally, Corey writes a song on their acoustic guitar, which they then bring to the group. From there, the songs tend to evolve somewhat organically––everyone in the band has multiple competencies, so our sonic palette options are plentiful––but a common order of operations would be Sam adding an electric guitar hook and some ambient colors & textures, Reed adds keys, bass (and in a few cases, arranging strings performed by the incredible Cynthia Tolson), and Nate dialing in the rhythmic feel of the track and adding some pads and ear candy to the production, while also curating the material from the rest of the group and tweaking sounds or adding additional instrumentation to help everything coalesce. Lastly, we’ll usually return to the vocals––Corey’s leads for ‘i know i know i know’ were cut almost entirely during basic tracking, but we spent a lot of the final recording stages building out more intricate vocal arrangements to try and match the expansiveness of the instrumental arrangements. From there, Nate does a last little bit of sound shaping and pre-mix work, and then it’s off to our dear friend Andrew Oedel (of Ghost Hit Recording) for mixing!
When it comes to recreating things live, how do things change then? What things are improvised vs rehearsed?
That’s been a whole journey. A few months ago, Reed had to step back from the project for a slew of personal reasons, leaving us with a bassist-shaped hole in the band. Ciarra Fragale – a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from North Adams – showed up to fill the hole, mercifully. She’s also an incredible singer, and her harmonies have been a profoundly cohering presence in the context of our live show, allowing us to capture some of those more expansive vocal arrangements from the recording.
In terms of the improvised vs. rehearsed end of things, it’s a bit of a balancing act! A lot of these songs (at least in their recorded form) have fairly meticulously curated arrangements, and it’s important to us that we try to capture the essentials from that––at the same time, everyone in the group (especially Corey) has an extensive background in live performance and really thrives off of that kind of impromptu energetic inspiration that can only really happen on stage. So our goal as we refine the live sound is to retain the core elements of our recorded versions (whether by triggering key samples, or performing tightly-crafted four-part vocal harmonies), while also leaving enough room for moments of improvisation and excitement to pull things in a different direction and give the live show that extra umph.
For Corey, if you feel comfortable sharing, what’s one of the hardest lessons you’ve learned as a result of the struggles that you faced and wrote about on this release?
Mmm… I think hitting rock bottom, while absolutely brutal, stripped away a lot of the inessential baggage that motivated some of the undermining ways I’d been behaving. I’m a hell of a lot less prideful now than I was then – less defensive, less intent on being “right.” I’m also vastly less willing to disguise my hurt and discomfort – the self-reclamatory necessity of vulnerability in the work of intimacy is incredibly scary and brutal, but also one of the most important lessons I’ve become a student of.
What fellow artists have most helped influence you as an artist?
Oh man, so many. Not to be basic (too late!), but I’m forever inspired by the Beatles — their sustained joy, their camaraderie, their collective sense of spiritual and sonic exploration, the way they were able to finesse the intersection of the absurd and the profound. I’ve got their entire catalog emblazoned forever on my earliest retaining-mind and I’m not mad about it.
I think Amanda Palmer is fucking brilliant. So unapologetic. Simultaneously so humble and so brimming with conviction. She walks that lively line like a boss.
Joni Mitchell is obviously a revelation.
Deb Talan and Antje Duvekot are two of the most under-recognized voices in modern folk music. Give them Grammys.
Anaïs Mitchell’s storytelling is basically numinous.
Paul Baribeau was the primary resident of my heart during some formative years.
Bob Dylan.
Nate’s favorite album is ‘Voodoo’ by D’Angelo. He’s a longtime Prince-devotee, and if you squint hard enough you can see some of that DNA showing up in his Cloudbelly contributions. One Hundred Years of Solitude and In The Mood For Love both had significant impacts on his understanding of and approach to songwriting and production, and that makes a ton of sense specifically in his own head. Shawn Everette and Tchad Blake (as both mixers and producers) have had a massive influence on his interest in crunchy, disjointed, yet still impossibly musical sounds. Jeff Tweedy wrote his favorite lyric.
Sam stans Angelo Badalamenti (and everything else related to Twin Peaks) hard, and models a lot of his textural approach on Ed O’Brien (of Radiohead fame), and the mystical expansiveness of the Tolkien-verse.
What’s the most recent thing you did in an act of self-care, whether for yourself or someone else?
Corey just took a nap and it was everything.
What albums and/or bands have you been really digging recently?
‘Mr. Brightside’ by the Killers. That record is so fucking good.
‘Two Star & The Dream Police’ by Mk.gee, ‘What Now’ by Brittany Howard, and ‘Wall of Eyes’ by The Smile are three favs from the new year.
What’s one piece of advice you can give for other creatives out there?
The only metric that matters is what feels and sounds good TO YOU. Your sensibility doesn’t exist in a vacuum — your affinities, if you follow them, will lead you to the people whose inner lives chime like yours.
What’s next for you musically? Where can people see and/or hear you?
We just put out this record obviously, so you can find that by typing “cloudbelly i know i know i know” into the search bar of your preferred streaming service, or if you’re into vinyl/physical media, swing by Strange Library Records to grab a copy all for yourself! We’re also already gearing up for our next recording project, and would conservatively predict that we’ll begin releasing singles again by the end of 2024. Stay tuned!!
On the seeing us front–right now we’re about a third of the way through an extensive tour of the Eastern US. Check out our instagram and website for details – we would love love love to see you at a show!!
Any closing musings?
Thanks for the opportunity!!!
Cloudbelly Official Website / Facebook / Instagram
Strange Library Records Official Website / Instagram
