News Track By Track: Cloud Nothings - Here And Nowhere Else

For all the brute force of Cloud Nothings’ 2012 album ‘Attack on Memory’, the band themselves treated it as ‘just another record’, in some senses. This was a trajectory they were on, and their second album was just another jot on the radar. The process continues with ‘Here and Nowhere Else’, a third album that continues to seethe and spit but this time brings in more pop, more punk, more choruses, more… songs. Distinct and tangible things, each track is a giant addition to the band’s catalogue, linking up into an album that topples its predecessor.

DIY’s four-star review remarks on a record that veers from ‘brilliantly grungy to cacophonous noise perfectly.’

As well as being offered a stream of the record, we’re delighted to bring you an exclusive, often hilarious track-by-track guide from Dylan Baldi.

Pre-order Cloud Nothings’ ‘Here and Nowhere’ Else’, out 31st March on Wichita/Carpark, physically and digitally.



Now Hear In
This song started as an acoustic guitar part about a year and a half ago. I wrote it in France on a guitar I borrowed from a friend of mine, and it kind of kickstarted the whole writing process for the record. The guitar was a piece of junk, but the weird idiosyncrasies of it made me play a little differently than I had previously, opening up doors to the way I play throughout the record.

Quieter Today
Being in a band means often dealing with people who have supermassive egos and like to hear themselves talk. This song isn’t really inspired by one specific experience, but is just about generally knowing when to shut up and let someone else do the talking. That’s kind of a lost art in the Twitter era.

Psychic Trauma
I have a tendency to dramatically over think anything if I spend too long ruminating on it, and this song addresses that. The tempo change at the beginning took forever to get right in the studio, because John Congleton (the producer) kept trying to get it to sound perfect. But it ended up sounding better when we just played it normally and sort of fell into the next part, rather than being right on time. We struggle with steady tempos!

Just See Fear
This song originally sounded too much like a Strokes song, and it bothered me, so I put it away for awhile. But eventually I realised it was alright and we started to play it again. The build-up towards the end of the song is my favourite part of the whole record…screaming like that is really fun. It’s cool that my job is to scream at people.

Giving Into Seeing
Actually, the build-up at the end of this one is my favourite part of the record. I wanted it to sound like the Feelies, but of course it ended up totally different. I say ‘swallow’ a few times on one section of this song because I couldn’t think of any other words. My girlfriend is French, so I asked her what her favourite English word is and she said ‘swallow.’ And history was made.

No Thoughts
This is the oldest song on the record. We’d been playing this one for about 6 months before we recorded it. I kind of wanted to make the breakdown in this one have audience cheering sounds, just because I really think that’s funny. But I never voiced that opinion, so it never happened. This record could have been great.

Pattern Walks
This one is pretty long. We just like to jam, and when we organise those jams on a record they end up sounding pretty cool sometimes. I think everyone likes when bands jam, even if they don’t know it. A good band making a bunch of noise together is just fun to listen to. Anyway, fun fact: the end of this song is sort of a response to ‘Wasted Days’ from the last record…instead of saying ‘I thought I would be more than this,’ I just say ‘I thought.’ Which is a pretty succinct way of summing up the way I’m doing things these days.

I’m Not Part Of Me
This song was written in like 5 minutes one day before we went to the studio. I just sort of cranked it out, Jayson played drums on it, and it was an immediate hit. This is totally the one that kids will hear and be like, ‘Sounds cool! then hear the rest of the record and be like, ‘This sucks!’ - I’m into that though. You’ve gotta have one super pop song. It’s about finding yourself through all of the things you’ve experienced - just taking little pieces of everything you’ve done and figuring out what makes you happy and fulfilled.