When Claud took the stage for a Tuesday afternoon session, they did a kindness by immediately giving everyone in attendance a crash course in how their sound has evolved between debut album Super Monster and just-released sophomore effort Supermodels.
It was wonderfully, gloriously loud.
Claud Mintz’s project grabbed attention as the first signee to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory label, and their initial 2021 release had a dreamy quality to it — albeit with plenty of flourishes to help it stand out in an increasingly crowded bedroom-pop field. The flourishes are still there on the new LP but emerge from a more emphatic foundation.
After the session, I got the chance to ask Mintz about how the shift in sound came about, and they joked that it was just a matter of turning up their guitars.
It obviously wasn’t that simple during the recording process for Supermodels. During their Studio Milwaukee Session, however, the trio on stage more than happily dialed it up to 11. Mintz, Molly Kirschenbaum on bass and Ross Chait on drums spared no decibel as they ripped through two songs from the new album, a warm-up for that night’s show at X-Ray Arcade.
Before capping the performance with “Soft Spot,” Mintz talked with 88Nine’s Dori Zori about being Saddest Factory’s longest-standing member, the Milwaukee connection to the first thing they learned on guitar and how naming a song after Paul Rudd led to the actual Paul Rudd appearing in one of their videos. They even tacked on a brief muffin review for good measure.
Listen to the whole session using the player at the top of the page, and head over to our Radio Milwaukee membership page if you want to guarantee yourself a seat at the next one.
Set list
- "A Good Thing"
- "Paul Rudd"
- "Soft Spot"
