Liverpool lofi indie/folk outfit CLEAN CUT KID are delighted to reveal details of their forthcoming fourth album HISS, which is now set for release on 11th November 2022, on new independent label home Alcopop! Records.
To celebrate the news, the band have released yet another artful and cinematographic self-produced video for new single ‘Inside My Head’, which is released on 14th September 2022 and stars family members Walter Halls and Richard Halls.
Commenting on the track, frontman Mike Halls says: “As a songwriter, I’ve always had two opposing sets of feelings about what I do. On the one hand you’re very proud of, and almost defined by what you see as kind of a ‘gift’, and on the other hand it feels like the most pathetic and self obsessed existence. ‘Inside My Head’ is me asking the question ‘what will I be as a person when this gift eventually dries up?’. It culminates in one of my biggest fears: that I’ll have let music rule my life so much I’ll miss out on having a family.”
“Like all of the other videos for HISS, ‘Inside My Head’ was filmed on ultra 8 Kodak 50D film using a Canon 1218,” explains Halls of his concept for the video, which stars his dad and uncle. “My aim with all of the visuals for this record was to capture something that means a lot to me, in its purest form. Filmed on a beautiful day at Formby beach, with 2 of my favourite people on planet earth, and using only Michel Gondry style physical effects. It’s about as honest and full of love as a music video can be.”
Recorded and produced in their top of the range, custom-built analogue home studio based in their Liverpool flat, forthcoming album HISS was painstakingly and lovingly crafted by the band, who reveal themselves as true audiophiles and songwriters of the highest calibre in the process.
The record sees the band coming full circle, triumphantly returning to the lofi roots that began their journey. Traversing the subsequent ups and downs of indie-pop stardom since their major label debut in 2017, the band have found themselves most at home back where it all began—at the quiet, sentimental heart of their delicately unfurling, midnight-hour-favouring songwriting magic, with complete creative control.
Of the cathartic nature of the undertaking, Halls says: “HISS is as honest an album as I’ll ever be able to make. It was winter 2020; the whole world had ground to a halt, and the pain of being separated from pretty much everything I love had begun to turn into music in my head.”
“I started to recontextualize the situation as some sort of gift I’d been given, to learn about everything I’d taken for granted. Was the fact that I could no longer perform or play music with people just a way of preparing for life after this whole songwriting gift turns stale? Was the forced separation from my parents just some exercise in dealing with life after they’re gone? With my head bursting full of music about the most painful of subjects, I decided to plug directly into an 8 track tape machine, making a record that was 100% unedited.”
The album’s previous singles ‘Heavy As’, ‘Lewis, Be Brave’ and ‘Little Black Space’ picked up support from DORK Magazine, ASBO Magazine, Louder Than War, Paper Champion and more, with heavy rotation on Spotify’s Stay In Bed, Folk Pop, The Wilds, Garden Indie, Modern Eclectic, and Sounds Good playlists.
High profile international radio support came from BBC R1 Indie Show host Jack Saunders, BBC 6music‘s Steve Lamacq, Jasper Leijdens at KINK Radio, and Shell Zenner at Amazing Radio, with the tracks also added to US station Idobi Anthm‘s playlist.
Closing out last year supporting Orla Gartland on her UK headline tour dates as a stripped-back duo to a rapturous response, the band’s own winter 2021 UK headline tour dates saw them appearing alongside New York-based songwriter Lorkin O’Reilly, with the band set to announce further live dates over the coming months.
HISS is released 11th November 2022 via Alcopop! Records
Clean Cut Kid online:
https://www.cleancutkid.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/cleancutkid
https://www.facebook.com/cleancutkid
https://www.instagram.com/cleancutkidmusic/
Clean Cut Kid are:
Mike Halls (vocals/guitar)
Evelyn Halls (vocals/keys)
Ross Higginson (drums)
Gareth Bullock (bass)
