HARRY CLOUD Delivers “The Cyst,” Plump With Musical Possibilities, Out Now on Kitten Robot Records
“Harry Cloud sounds like you’ve been tethered to a quad bike and dragged full speed, over broken electrical equipment and through a successive series of Kraftwerk, Atari Teenage Riot, A.C. and Sigur Rós shows” – The Burning Beard
““… stately artistic sludge bordering on insanity and avant-garde dadaistic drone that drags you into their own colorful tar pit and smothers you with their bizarre mushroomed psychedelic.” – The Stoner Hive
Innovative Shape-Shifter
HARRY CLOUD
Delivers a Plump ‘Cyst’ Full of Musical Possibilities
A Smorgasbord of Psych-Tinged Sludge and Stoner Indie Rock Steeped With Bits of Metal, Funk, and Twang
Out Today via Kitten Robot
FEBRUARY 7, 2023 (Los Angeles, CA) — HARRY CLOUD refuses to sit still, creatively, unleashing a cornucopia of melded musical ideas on THE CYST, which arrives today via Kitten Robot Records and is produced by Paul Roessler (Nina Hagen, TSOL, Pat the Bunny, Josie Cotton). Through ten distinctively unique tracks, the Georgia-based Avant-composer takes us on a mystery tour that delivers curveball after curveball, showing off his inventive energy while keeping us all on our toes. With 16 combined album and EP releases to his credit (under the monikers Fannyland, Orphan Goggles, and COPS as well as Harry Cloud), THE CYST might just the most accessible chapter yet in a prolific story that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.
It’s true – cysts are not often thought of among life’s greatest rewards. But metaphorically speaking, you’ve got to deal with them in order to find relief, which is exactly what Harry Cloud is getting at with this ambitious project. A horror film enthusiast with a penchant for the macabre, he’s not afraid to ‘go there‘: rejection, perversion, alcoholism, unrequited love, the fine art of sexting, unwanted pregnancy, doomed relationships… even missing bodies – they’re all part of the compellingly non-linear storylines contained within THE CYST, and he approaches each track with a different vocal style to match.
Photo credit: Sarah Sitkin
“The Cyst came about like all my records I make with Paul Roessler,” Harry explains about the new set. “I come into the studio with completed songs, half written stuff or nothing at all. A lot of stuff is hashed out, made up and organized in the studio. I had no direction for the album, it was just what I was writing at the time. After a certain number of songs have been recorded and a period of my life feels like it’s coming to a close, I say ‘OK that’s an album,’ and then off to the next one.”
Opener “Send Me Pictures” is a perfect example of our narrator’s ability to blend seemingly disparate, sweet and sour elements into something musical and engaging. Part catchy hoedown, part paean to sexting, it’s the story of a perverted, alcoholic cowboy told with a piercing shriek that’s as jarring as it is comical (in a Tim & Eric Show kinda way).
And then there’s the gorgeously obtuse interspecies love song, “Squid Friend,” which waxes poetic about a star-crossed affair.
“’Squid Friend’ is a beautiful, whimsical tune about a human who’s in love with an aquatic creature but ultimately becomes heartbroken because he cannot breathe underwater,” he explains in forlorn tones. “The song is full of longing for his slimy lover.”
The sludgy “Ferryman’s Guild,” meanwhile, injects subtle synths amidst a sea of distorted guitars and guttural vocals. It’s a “really unusual song,” he explains. “Paul [Roessler] put a lot of crazy noises throughout the song and I really like my singing. My friend Ryan Weiner played the guitar solo in the middle and I think it’s amazing. The song isn’t really about anything, as some of my songs aren’t. It’s made up words and things that just sounded cool and worked well together phonetically.” THE CYST brims with bizarre charm throughout, from “Ferryman’s…” skronky moments of cacophonous crunch to something tangibly funkier (the title track, the Zappa-esque “Soft Pillowcases Colored Red“), occasionally veering past ethereal, shoegaze territory (“Most Likely Nothing Ever“) en route to the closer “Lick the Lamb,” a metallic grand finale that transitions from something that’d almost sound at home on AOR-radio into a coven’s sacrificial ceremony by song’s end.
Hailing from Midland, Georgia on the border of Alabama, Harry Cloud’s first foray into music began in the MySpace years when he befriended a group of likeminded artists and moved upstate to Atlanta to join the experimental/noise scene under the name A Butterfly-Eaten Horsehead and later Single Mothers. Migrating out West to Los Angeles afforded a meeting with Roessler who helped him hone his sound with tighter production at Kitten Robot studios. The latest chapter in their fruitful creative partnership, THE CYST, is out today.
THE CYST
Tracklisting
Send Me Pictures
Ferryman’s Guild
Post Partum
You Never Came To My Party
The Cyst
Soft Pillowcases Colored Red
Squid Friend
Most Likely Nothing Ever
I’m Still Waiting
Lick The Lamb
