Waves Nathan Williams and Cloud Nothings’ Dylan Baldi have released their collaborative LP No Life ForMe on iTunes and bandcamp. It’s out right now via Williams’ label Ghost Ramp. That’s the artwork above and the tracklist below.
As previously reported, the album was produced by Sweet Valley (the beatmaking duo of Williams and his brother Joel) and features Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij.
On Twitter, Williams answered a few questions about the album and his current plans for Wavves and other projects. He said a joint tour was “not likely” due to his and Baldi’s schedules, though Wavves began a tour last September and released a new album in August. Additionally, he said that while the collaborative album won’t get a proper physical release, it’ll will be released on vinyl.
No Life For Me:
01 Untitled 1
02 How It’s Gonna Go
03 Come Down
04 Hard To Find
05 Untitled II
06 Nervous
07 No Life For Me
08 Such A Drag
09 Nothing Hurts
Cloud Nothings have announced the follow-up to their 2014 album “Here and Nowhere Else” and last year’s Wavves collaboration No Life For Me .
“Life Without Sound” is out January 27th via Wichita Recordings . The announcement comes with a new single called “Modern Act” check it out below, along with the album’s artwork, track list, and the band’s forthcoming tour dates. The album was recorded with producer John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Death Cab for Cutie) in El Paso earlier this year.
Generally, it seems like my work has been about finding my place in the world. But there was a point in which I realized that you can be missing something important in your life, a part you didn’t realize you were missing until it’s there—hence the title. This record is like my version of new age music. It’s supposed to be inspiring.
On Here and Nowhere Else, which was produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Erykah Badu, R. Kelly (!?)), Cloud Nothings take the best bits from their previous tutelage under alt-god producer Steve Albini, apply them to lo-fi pop-punk structures and infuse all of it with tightly wound angst. If the first indicator of this fusion was the immediately hooky lead single “I’m Not Part of Me,” then album opener “Now Hear In” is the case in point. An incisive mission statement right down to its title, the song marries fevered riffs with a bass-heavy chorus. It’s upbeat punk, but Dylan Baldi’s lyrics about his vexing past provide a dour counterpoint that sets the tone for the entire album.
This album is full of attacking, confrontational and in your face anthems. Opener “Now Here In” pounds along driven by the drums at a decent pace and Baldi’s maturing vocals. The band are in total control and avoid the mistake of a headlong rush to the finish. Songs like the powerful “Quieter Today” increase the foot on the gas, but Baldi’s pop sensibilities are ever present not least on “Physic Trauma” which does that Pixies quiet loud thing with Baldi’s vocals at one point strained to breaking point. This is taken to its logical conclusion on the post punk thrash “Giving into Seeing” easily the toughest thing on the album, like a speeded up Slint played at the wrong speed. The longest and best track on the album is “Pattern Walks” a veritable mini epic of stirring cacophony and garage rock sensibility. The whole thing is rounded off by the single “I’m not part of me” with its slight Ramones tinge and sing-along chanted chorus.
The Cloud Nothings have produced an album of big songs and even bigger riffs. They do not however descend into the sort of happy clappy emo rock which has spread like a virus through young American Bands over recent years. “Here and Nowhere Else” shows that Cloud Nothings are picking up the mantle of some of their classic predecessors.
Cloud Nothings have announced a new album, “Life Without Sound”, not due out until January 27th. It will follow-up 2014’s Here and Nowhere Else. (Since that very good 2014 effort, Cloud Nothing’s main creative force, Dylan Baldi, worked with Wavves’ Nathan Williams on the good-not-great No Life for Me.) The new album’s announcement comes with “Modern Act”, the first single from Life Without Sound.
Singer/guitarist Dylan Baldi’s wildly catchy gloom-punk peaked on Cloud Nothings’ two most recent LPs, the panicked grandiosity of 2012’sAttack on Memory and last year’s cacophonous Here and Nowhere Else. The three-piece had such a high-profile 2014 thateven brother in lo-fi armsWavves’ Nathan Williams grabbed Baldi this year to record the joint mini-LP No Life For Me a totally respectable move…save for the fact that fans might’ve preferred another round of Baldi tunes with his power trio.
Cloud Nothings’Dylan Baldi who has truly kept the rock genre afloat. Though the band had its work cut out for it after “Attack On Memory” was lauded as a modern classic in 2012, “Here And Nowhere Else”remains self-assured in the face of any outside expectations. Even as Cloud Nothings slims down to a trio after the departure of guitarist Joe Boyer, the band continues to settle into itself without any noticeable gaps in its sound. There’s a wiry aggression that runs throughout the album, evinced by Baldi’s rabidly snarling chord progressions and the rhythm section’s ability to turn every note into an emphatic punch. Whether the band is going into noisy jams (“Pattern Walks”) or writing poppy post-punk that would make Mission Of Burma drool (“I’m Not A Part Of Me”), Cloud Nothings seems content to live in the moment; we’re just lucky to be along for the ride.
The Fat Angel Sings 