Oh we had time, well you know, at times
Time was all we had
Our distances fell flat to parallel horizons
Not quite happy, not quite sad

‘Garbage’ possesses the lonely intimacy of an empty room, nothing but plucked guitar and vocals for the opening half before layers of samples build like memories flashing past. ‘November’ is also full of sober feeling. As we wrote in a preview, the track takes “the melancholy of the titular month and infus[es] it with a marching rhythm to evoke the precious fragility of love.” A similar momentum drives ‘Fascinated’, the first full song on the record which immediately pitches the audience into the cathartic spirit of the Cloudbelly sound. It’s an anthemic introduction, compete with pounded percussion and singalong chorus of the tears-in-your eyes, empowering variety, but its again shaded with a sense of tender intimacy, a refusal to gloss over life’s anxieties and complications.

What results is a sense of hard won conviction. Lessons learnt not via bright epiphany but the slow grind of living through difficult circumstances. Understanding how to not only roll with the punches but rise from knockout blows. “So it’s been strange sailing these days,” as Laitman sings on ‘Bloom’, “The nights turn my empty pockets out / And fill them with moon, and the wind / And the wild, blooming bruise / Of beginning again.” With resilience comes the hope of something better and kinder. Days in which they might step out of their body, or finally burst into bloom.

i know i know i know is out now via Strange Library Records and available from the Cloudbelly Bandcamp page.

The post Cloudbelly – i know i know i know appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Latest single ‘Leavened’ follows on from this. A track built on a bed of gentle, dreamy synths, over which Laitman’s vocals are left to drift. But as the song progresses this backdrop gradually swells with rich ambient tones and vocal harmonies, a steady increase which never quite reaches any cathartic crescendo yet nevertheless realises a certain power. This is turn lifts Laitman’s delivery into its own confident space, the lyrics finding assurance in their contemplation of identity and relationships.

and sometimes I’m a cowboy
and sometimes, I’m a girl
but mostly I’m a pale blue thief
whose water drank the world

‘Leavened’ is out now and available from the Cloudbelly Bandcamp page. thou / them will be released later this year on Signature Sounds.

The post Cloudbelly – Leavened appeared first on Various Small Flames.