Singer/songwriter Claud, recently shared a video for their single “Soft Spot,” the latest track from their forthcoming debut album Super Monster, which comes out February 12th via Saddest Factory Records, Phoebe Bridgers’ new label imprint with Dead Oceans. Says Claud of the captivating new video for the song, directed by Brad Bischoff, “Something I’ve come to realise in the last couple years is that moving away is VERY different than moving on (seems obvious but is really not…). This video is about the stuff that you can’t seem to leave behind and that comes with you wherever you go, whether they’re good things or not so good things.”

Claud Mintz is the first signing to Phoebe Bridgers’ new label imprint with Dead Oceans, Claud has been stealthily releasing impressively agile pop songs for the last two years. In early 2020, Claud sorted through those dozens of pieces, whittling them down to the baker’s dozen that now shape Super Monster, and headed home to New York to record at Electric Lady Studios with a wide network of close friends and new collaborators. Joshua Mehling played on and co-produced several tracks and the old friends were joined by Claire Cottrill (aka Clairo), Melanie Faye, Blu Detiger, Noa Getzug, Nick Hakim and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jake Portrait.

The album’s artwork is a self-portrait by Claud and serves not just as album art, but as superhero mascot. Upon finishing a long day at Electric Lady, the studio owner uncovered and shared an as-yet-unpublished drawing by the late, great Daniel Johnston depicting a person leaping triumphantly from the surrounding grass. It was titled “Claud and the Super Monster” and, for Claud, the drawing and title depicted perfectly how the undefinable is often viewed as monstrous when it is in fact, freeing, even ascendant.

Claud
Super Monster
Saddest Factory Records

1. Overnight
2. Gold
3. Soft Spot
4. In Or In Between
5. Cuff Your Jeans
6. Ana
7. Guard Down
8. This Town
9. Jordan
10. That’s Mr. Bitch To You
11. Pepsi
12. Rocks At Your Window
13. Falling At The Rain