The July pick for our Record of the Month Club is a new LP from Brooklyn based, Cut Worms.
The self-titled record–on the Jagjaguwar label–drips with vintage sounds like Laurel Canyon in the 1960s–think Neil Young and Harry Nilsson–with a touch of indie pop full of strums and hums–think Kevin Morby and Cass McCombs–for an easy, breezy listening experience on these hot summer days.
Club Members will be getting a copy of the album pressed on limited, “Sea Glass Waves” vinyl. These will begin shipping out on July 20th.
The last Cut Worms LP, Nobody Lives Here Anymore, was one of our favorite albums of 2020. The album was recorded in Memphis at famous Sam Philips Recording, and it stayed on our turntable for weeks… We’re feeling the same nostalgia with this newest addition to the Cut Worms catalog.
From the record label:
The car windows are down, the air is warm, and the possibilities are boundless. On Cut Worms, the new self-titled album from Brooklyn-based Max Clarke, the singer-songwriter and musician continues his exploration of what he calls “pop essentialism”. Mining the golden hits of yesteryear for a timeless double A-side sound, he contemplates age-old questions through a modern lens. Here, he leaves behind the legendary studio and sought-after producers for a more homegrown approach, working with a cast of gifted friends and collaborators. The result is a compact collection of daydream anthems that live between the summer’s hopeful beginnings and the season’s fleeting end.
As opposed to recording the entire album in one chunk at one studio, Clarke varied his methods. Three of the songs were cut from start to finish in his shared rehearsal space. “Don’t Fade Out” and Living Inside” were recorded in Brooklyn by Brian and Michael D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs, who also played piano and bass, respectively, on these two songs. Further basic tracking was done by Rick Spataro (of indie folk band Florist) at his Hudson Valley studio, Onlyness Analog, with contributions from the long standing Cut Worms live band–keyboardist John Andrews, bassist Keven Louis Lareau, and drummer Noah Bond (who played on all three sessions).
A youthful spirit breathes throughout these nine songs. The carnation-adorned school dance serenade of “I’ll Never Make It”; the starry eyed infatuation of “Is it Magic?”; the first fall leaves on the bus ride to school on “Living Inside”–all evoke a place of warmth and safety. Declarations like “Don’t Fade Out”, “Let’s Go Out On The Town”, and “Use Your Love” make high demands for life to change, but beg for us, as people, to keep hold of what makes us human. Clarke wrestles with a paradox–the joys of experience cannot be won without the loss of innocence.
On “Ballad of a Texas King” Clarke sings, ““Hey kid come along… something is wrong… I believe you know… All this to say, only one way that this can go…” It’s as if he’s reaching out to his younger self, letting him know the changes are inevitable. How do we hang on to a dream? How do we not lose ourselves in a world that is lost? The only way out of a nightmare is to keep going. Clarke’s answer lies in his art, where the search for love and the perfect pop song coalesce and transcend him to that other plane
