Just a year after their eponymous debut, Cloud Nothings, the Cleveland, Ohio-based group, return with a stunning new Wichita album, Attack On Memory. And here’s the big news – it was produced by the king of noise rock, Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Manic Street Preachers, and PJ Harvey).
The pairing has resulted in a record that’s a huge step forward for the band: more experimental, more varied, but still accessible, taking in post-rock, indie, post-punk and some sheer, unadulterated noise. When we say there are some heavy moments, we mean HEAVY moments, like the nine-minute Wasted Days and the growling No Sentiment.
“You know how when you see a band and you think, That band was good but there weren’t enough guitar solos?” asks frontman Dylan Baldi. “The song ‘Fall In’ is to make sure that doesn’t happen with us.”
In the months since the release of Cloud Nothings, Dylan has toured extensively and put a great deal of focus on the band’s live show. Baldi played every instrument on Cloud Nothings, but here, the full band recorded as-live in the studio – all members playing at once – giving a greater sense of the band’s stage might.
Despite the title, no time was wasted in putting the album together – most of it was done in a single take.“ The title track took the most takes to get down, something like three or four,” says Dylan, “Infuriating.”
The album’s closing number was written and recorded in the studio: “We thought seven songs was too short for a record,” says Dylan. “Eight is the perfect amount.” Mixing was equally swift: “Steve is very efficient – mixing took about four hours. While we were recording he played Scrabble on facebook and occasionally would tell us how David Yow [The Jesus Lizard] is better than any of us at Scrabble. And we talked about Mungo Jerry a lot. More than I have ever talked about Mungo Jerry in my entire life.”
Set for a 6 February 2012 release, the album will be preceded by the single Stay Useless – one of the album’s perkier, poppier moments. “It’s the pop jam,” says Baldi. “You can’t totally abandon the old ways. I got stuck in my head for a long time when I wrote it, and I felt like an idiot.”
Debut album Cloud Nothings took Baldi from obscurity (his parents’ Cleveland basement) to international acclaim within two years of conceiving the project. Still aged just 20 years-old, Attack On Memory is set to catapult the singer/songwriter and his band to indie rock’s big leagues. The rest of the scene should be worried – Baldi is intent on moving things along. “The title, Attack On Memory, is basically referencing the current trend toward hazy, electronic-y nostalgic music that is making up the “indie” scene,” says Baldi. “I don’t really like that kind of music. This album is meant to place us more firmly outside of that category.”
The restless Dylan wrote three albums’ worth of material whilst completing Attack On Memory (“I basically sit in my room and try to figure out ways to not be bored,”) and he promises to keep evolving. “Two of the albums were super fucked up and weird, and I didn’t see the point in changing the sound that drastically yet. Better to take things one step at a time. Our next album is all zydeco music.”
