Cut Worms

Today, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Cut Worms (aka Max Clarke) shares the new single/video, “Living Inside,” from his new self-titled album out today on Jagjaguwar. Following the previously shared “Don’t Fade Out,” “Living Inside” is one of two Cut Worms songs recorded in Brooklyn by Brian and Michael D’Addario of the Lemon Twigs, who also played piano and bass (respectively) on the songs. “Living Inside” is a perfect case-study of Cut Worms’ central exploration of “pop essentialism.” When writing Cut Worms, Clarke challenged himself to cut out extraneous detail and hang on to the essentials of what makes a song stronger. The result is a compact collection of daydream anthems that live between the summer’s hopeful beginnings and the season’s fleeting end.

Tonight, Clarke will complete his sold-out month-long residency at Union Pool in Brooklyn, NY. Later this fall, he’ll embark on a lengthy tour, bringing his beloved live set to cities across North America. Full dates are listed below and tickets are on sale now.

On Cut Worms, Clarke leaves behind the legendary studio and sought after producers for a more homegrown approach, working with a cast of gifted friends and collaborators. As opposed to recording the entire album in one chunk at one studio, Clarke varied his methods. Three of the songs were cut from start to finish in his shared rehearsal space; two others were recorded in Brooklyn by Brian and Michael D’Addorio of the Lemon Twigs. Further basic tracking was done by Rick Spataro (of Florist) at his Hudson Valley studio, Onlyness Analog, with contributions from the long-standing Cut Worms live band: keyboardist John Andrews, bassist Keven Louis Lareau, and drummer Noah Bond.

Across Cut Worms’ nine songs, Clarke wrestles with a paradox — the joys of experience cannot be won without the loss of experience. It’s as if he’s reaching out to his younger self, letting him know the changes are inevitable. How do we hang on to a dream? How do we not lose ourselves in a world that is lost? The only way out of a nightmare is to keep going. Clarke’s answer lies in his art, where the search for love and the perfect pop song coalesce and transcend him to that other plane.