Indie Rock Recording Artist (ECR Music Group, NYC)
Founder/A&R, Hook & Ladder Records
Co-Founder, Buffalo Music Club
David Cloyd returns to the national spotlight with his first record in more than a decade, Red Sky Warning (ECR Music Group). Co-produced and mixed by indie-music polyglot Blake Morgan (Lenny Kravitz, Janita, Lesley Gore), this new record finds Cloyd hitting the same brilliant note his earlier work struck, but at a higher yet deeper emotional octave.
“Red Sky Warning is a love story in some familiar ways, but it’s also one about music itself,” says Cloyd. “My love of making music stretches back as far as I can remember. It’s a deeply mysterious love to me, and exploring it is not the search for an answer—for me, the exploration is the answer.”
With nearly 400,000 streams across platforms in recent months for the album’s three singles, the indie-music cult figure’s return has been a striking one—major press coverage, multiple editorial placements on Apple Music alongside St. Vincent, U2, The Cure, My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, Bon Iver and others, and a reinvigorated and passionate audience on three continents. His artistry will draw comparisons to Radiohead, Beck, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, and Peter Gabriel as it always has, but Cloyd’s distinctive voice—both as a singer and as a record maker—continues to be completely his own.
“Where did the time go?” asks Cloyd in the album’s opener “Ocean of Hours.” Answering that question lies in understanding why his initial ascent to cult-figure status was so remarkable, and unique.
Before moving north to Buffalo, Cloyd had made a stunning splash with his 2009 debut album, Unhand Me, You Fiend!—an album he’d recorded in his 9-foot by 9-foot apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn on a personal computer he’d built by hand. After being discovered by—and subsequently signing to—Morgan’s ECR Music Group record label, Cloyd’s debut went on to hit #1 on the world’s second-largest streaming service at the time (eMusic), culminating in a major feature about the artist in New York Magazine. Multiple TV music placements followed, his work becoming a regular fixture on MTV’s Real World, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and Bad Girls Club. His follow-up record, I Could Disappear, showcased his extraordinary musicianship with a set of live-in-studio performances of the material from his first record. His re-imaginings of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” and Paul McCartney’s “Dear Boy” won him an even broader audience, with the latter being licensed by McCartney’s own company, MPL Communications.
“David’s as special a musician as anyone is likely to encounter,” says Morgan. “It’s no surprise that he has this rabid following—the people who ‘get’ him get how special he is too. He’s a foundational artist here at ECR. I’m so glad he’s back with this new record, I’m proud to have helped bring it to life. His fans are going to absolutely love it.”’
A move to Buffalo to start a family was next for Cloyd, with the artist branching out as a producer himself and founding the Buffalo-based ECR imprint Hook & Ladder Records. In the years since, he’s become a tentpole music figure and producer in Buffalo’s music scene as a co-founder of the Buffalo Music Club, the progenitor and impresario of Buffalo’s Mixtapes concert series, producing Caroline Fenn’s Fragile Chances (2013) and Buffalo Tango Orkestra’s acclaimed debut Ecos Del Pasado (2018), all while also becoming ECR Music Group’s VP of Creative Operations.
“We live in dark and difficult times, but in all of that darkness, releasing music into the world again has been one of my brightest experiences,” says Cloyd. “The response I’ve gotten to my new music—after a period of working with so many other musicians on theirs—has been utterly beautiful, and it’s given me courage beyond my wildest dreams.”
NY Magazine writes, “For Cloyd, all possibilities seem within reach.” The Indie Grid adds, “Cloyd’s return promises not only a continuation of the distinctive artistry that made him a cult figure but also a deeper dive into the emotional terrain he’s been traversing throughout his career.” The Big Takeover simply proclaims, “David Cloyd is back, and back with a vengeance.”
Red Sky Warning, written and performed by David Cloyd, and co-produced, mixed, and mastered by Blake Morgan, is out June 6th.
