CLAVVS
Brooklyn-based duo CLAVVS has released their new single “Stay Forever”. The indie electronic-pop single came from the feeling of loneliness during lockdown.
Comprised of Amber Renee and Graham Marsh, the duo invites their listeners to dance through the hard times with their atmospheric and memorable records.
The duo will be releasing their forthcoming album O on July 29th. The record will be available on Iridescent Seafoam Green Limited Edition vinyl, which can be pre-ordered HERE.
CLAVVS will also be performing at the Irving plaza in November. Click HERE for tickets and details !!
“Stay Forever” is now available worldwide.
Photo credit: Lissyelle Laricchia
How would you define CLAVVS, the duo?
We’re Amber Renee and Graham Marsh, an indie electro-pop band based in Brooklyn, NY.
"Stay Forever" is your new single - what's the inspiration behind this song?
Amber: I wrote “Stay Forever” at the height of my lockdown loneliness. It’s for anyone missing someone. I was imagining the moment I get to be with my friends and family again. It’s about building a world where we can stay in the joy of the moment together. It has a bittersweet feeling to me, like I want to dance and cry at the same time. Maybe because I know nothing really stays forever, and that’s beautiful in its own way.
Could you describe the songwriting/production process for this particular song? Who helped you create it?
Graham: We make all of our songs just the two of us in our home studio. “Stay Forever” came together fairly quickly, and it’s actually one of the more collaborative songs we’ve ever made together. It all centered around that pitched vocal part and the chords. Amber wrote the verses and pre-choruses and then we worked out the hook and bridge together. We really leaned into the disco vibe on this track, more so than any other song on the record. It was a lot of fun to make!
What can you tell us about your upcoming album O?
This album covers a lot of ground for us. It’s about growth and healing and joy, and we wanted that to be reflected in the sonic space of the record. We carved out our own little indie dance world that’s playful but still emotionally complex. We’re so proud of it! We took a whole different approach in the making of this record. We worked more collaboratively. We danced. We had fun. We trusted our intuition and ended up with 11 songs that we absolutely love. Ultimately, we just want to plant more joy into the world. So we’re really excited to play them live! We’ve waited a long time for that.
Amber: Lyrically, this album is a letter to my younger self and probably to my future self too. I went back to the beginning of my story, and I wrote songs about some of my hardest moments growing up. I processed a lot of old trauma by making dance songs to help my past self get through it. I felt the songs from my body this time around, and I followed that movement. “Put it Down” is about the panic attacks I had as a kid. “Dirt” is about reprogramming how I see myself in the mirror. “Ship” is about reuniting with my childhood self. So many of these songs are just me finding my way home to myself. Sonically and thematically, O is designed to circle back into itself, like an ouroboros. So each time you listen, maybe you hear something new or understand something differently. Healing is like this ever-evolving, never-ending, imperfect dance we’re all doing all the time. And as soon as you think you’re done, it just starts all over again!
Graham: This album was also a departure for us in that we wrote it with the live show in mind first. We really just wanted a CLAVVS live show to be a dance party, so every song on the record had to pass that test first. The production on O was definitely a progression as well. We always wanted to make a dance record but could never quite nail what that sounded like in the world of CLAVVS. But when we sat down to start writing new songs it really fell into place organically. We used live instruments much more on this one than in our past work. Live percussion became the main musical thread throughout the songs, and there’s so many weird and unique live sound design elements we snuck into the recordings, like foley we’ve taken around NYC. There’s one in “Heyi” that we made in Central Park a year to the day after we moved to Brooklyn. It’s our way of infusing very specific feelings into our songs.
What advice would you give to young artists?
Know who you are and love who you are more than anything else.
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