FINISHING any album, never mind one talked of as one of the most eagerly awaited of the year, deserves a celebration.
But when Glasgow trio Cloth completed their first album bang on deadline, guitar-playing twins Paul and Rachael Swinton had to clock in at the day job rather than pop corks with drummer Clare Gallacher.
“We didn’t plan that,” says Paul. “Rachael and I had taken a week off to get through everything but when it came to the crunch, we had to work 21 hours straight to make the deadline. When we finished, we went straight to work, which was quite weird.”
Cloth’s public life has been intense from the get-go, having been snapped up by crowdfunded label Last Night From Glasgow within days of uploading dreamy debut track Demo Love to YouTube in April 2018.
On its official release that June, the track was championed by influential BBC radio DJs Steve Lamacq, Tom Robinson and Huw Stephens, who went on to name Cloth as one of his “tips for 2019”.
They’ve lived up to that hype, earning devotees to their understated, delicately captivating songs with a session for Robinson’s BBC 6 Music show and prominent slots at the Great Escape and Latitude festivals over the summer.
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In July they retreated to Chem19, where they’d previously recorded singles Tripp, Holder and Old Bear – each an elegant blend of staccato grooves, impressionist melodies and poetic, barely there vocals.
Like forebears Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk and The xx, there’s an intensity to Cloth’s work that feels raw and intimate. But instead of loud catharsis, Cloth are about restraint, meticulous song-writing and creating space.
Every note, every bar seemed to matter over those singles, just as they do in the six new tracks written and recorded for the album, such as atmospheric new single Felt.
Like that track, which has Rachael’s feathery voice at a near-whisper, album closers Moons and Brooklyn are notably confident, a refinement of their earlier, starker sound for something richer but just as elegant.
“We wrote these ones in the last year, after we had done a lot of gigging and had more a sense of what we wanted to do with Cloth,” says Paul. “With a track like Brooklyn in particular, that to me is more of a distillation of the minimalist approach that we’ve got right now in a way we hadn’t quite been previously.”
Though the band are just back from a trip to Brooklyn, the song isn’t explicitly about the ever-fertile New York borough, says Paul. That his sister sings his lyrics largely unchanged speaks to the creative relationship the siblings began age 10 when they were each given Epiphone guitars.
“Because I know it’s going to be me singing, I might offer suggestions,” says Rachael. “If there’s anything that I can’t immediately hear myself sing or that I don’t quite understand, we’ll talk it through. But the majority, if not the entirety of the lyrics are by Paul. I put a lot of trust in him and he comes up with really thoughtful lyrics. We don’t even particularly discuss the content. I’ll read it and try to get a sense of what’s it’s about, or I’ll put my own reading on it and that’s enough for us.”
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It felt important, Rachael says, for Cloth to return to the studio with Derek O’Neil, the lauded Chem19 engineer who recorded the singles.
And O’Neil, also King Creosote’s chief keys-player, never complained throughout that final marathon make-or-break recording session.
“He totally gets what we’re trying to do,” says Paul of O’Neil, “and thankfully, he has the patience of a saint”.
Generosity also came from Glasgow-based Jamie Johnson, who encouraged the band in their early days. When Johnson sold Peak Boot, the colourful, enigmatic painting they wanted for their album cover, he offered to do another, in the same mysterious style.
Special signed copies of the stylish release can be pre-ordered for collection at the album launch, which sees support from London band Chorus Girl and new local outfit Lemon Drink.
Following the launch, the band will “play it by ear”, says Rachael.
“A lot of stuff has come in but we’re trying to be selective,” says Paul. “We’re working to make this show quite special.”
November 15, CCA, Glasgow, 8pm, £8, free to members of Last Night From Glasgow. Tel: 0141 352 4900. Tickets: bit.ly/ClothLPlaunch
www.lastnightfromglasgow.com
www.facebook.com/clothband
Cloth is released on November 15 via Last Night From Glasgow
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