Max Clarke, writes/sings/produces under the handle Cut Worms. Today, he has announced his forthcoming release Nobody Lives Here Anymore, will drop October 9th on Jagjaguwar. Today, he has shared video for “God Bless The Day.”

Clarke started writing material for his sophomore LP after an extensive eighteen-months of touring in support of 2017’s Alien Sunset and 2018’s Hollow Ground. Mining his life-long devotion to the lost American songbook for inspiration, he stockpiled nearly thirty new songs by the time he flew to Memphis to work with producer Matt Ross-Spang at Sam Phillips Recording Studio. Unlike earlier works that were meticulously demoed, Max opted for rough drafts to capture something more immediate and honest. Most of the initial takes were tracked live with Noah Bond on drums, while Max sang and played rhythm guitar. Max then built lush arrangements around these intimate performances. A skeleton crew of friends and Memphis all-stars were called in to lay down pedal steel, sax, and strings. When all was said and done, they had recorded 17 new cosmic Americana gems.

“Sold My Soul” and “God Bless The Day” follow previously released singles “Unnatural Disaster,” “Baby Come On,” and “Castle in the Clouds.” “Sold My Soul” takes a look back and ahead at the choices we make, with a thinly veiled punchline to soften the blow. Over jaunty guitar, Max’s voice is expressive as he sings “I sold my soul somewhere so long ago // Oh I didn’t think too much at the time I was young and I didn’t know // oh till I saw it late one night on the antique road show // expert collectors to appraise.” The accompanying video, directed and shot by Caroline Gohlke on Route 66 from Chicago to Oklahoma, captures the aura of stumbling through a deserted time.

Max sees this record as a figurative shot across the bow to the modern attention span. He says Nobody Lives Here Anymore is about “throwaway consumer culture and how the postwar commercial wet dreams never came true, how nothing is made to last.” He considers the golden years of a society on its last leg with poignant curiosity, suggesting not only that nobody lives the American dream, but that nobody lives here, in this moment, anymore. “It’s about homesickness for childhood, for a place that never really existed,” says Max.