Cloudbelly is an award-winning indie-folk & chamber-pop band from Western MA with a sound that is at once intimate and cinematic.
The group is fronted by singer-songwriter Corey Laitman, a former member of the NYC antifolk scene and Signature Sounds record label, whose ethereal poeticisms are delivered in a spellbinding voice that tips its cap to Sufjan Stevens and Joni Mitchell in equal measure. Laitman is joined by guitarist and ambient sound sculptor Sam Perry (SVIP), bassist and backing vocalist (and killer-solo artist in her own right) Ciarra Fragale, and drummer, producer, and sound mangler Nate Mondschein (who often works under the moniker of Best Mann)
Cloudbelly’s music has been recognized by the Kerrville New Folk Competition, New Song at Citizen Vinyl, WBUR Tiny Desk Roundup, and Signature Sounds Record Label, and their most recent release i know i know i know was hailed by The Boston Globe as one of the best records of 2024. The band has played Green River Festival, Arcadia Folk Fest, and Meadowlark Festival, sharing the stage with Fleet Foxes, Bonny Light Horseman, Cake, Sean Rowe, Josh Ritter, and many others.
On their latest project, the new LP i know i know i know, the group (along with frequent collaborator/bassist/keyboardist/string arranger Reed Sutherland) merges their individual superpowers to create a collection of tracks that flirts with experimentalism without ever abandoning its tether to a recognizable emotional bedrock. The record features everything from hook-heavy indie rock anthems to tender folk ballads, left-of-center art-pop odes to hypnotic, haunting meditations, each one highlighting Laitman’s unique ability to transport listeners into spaces of quiet intimacy, chaotic urgency, and tender revelation – oftentimes in the same breath.
Corey wrote the bulk of i know i know i know in the wake of the consecutive, tightly-timed implosion of two treasured relationships. The album is - among other things - a vessel for their sincere effort to grieve; to remember; to let go; to level with themself about the role they played in laying these paths of destruction; and, ultimately, to try and live with the absence of the people they love and their ghosts.
The album’s title (drawn from the chorus of its second single, “Handfuls”) points to that knife’s edge divide between understanding the way things are, and resisting the embrace of a reality you dread. i know i know i know is sober recognition of what’s real and a white-knuckled grip on the ledge of fantasy condensed into a single turn of phrase. It’s about confronting the fact that living life as a whole person involves embodying both the poison and the medicine. It’s about staying present with the intensity of our own pain.
The bones of i know i know i know were recorded at Ghost Hit Recording in West Springfield, MA, with additional layers added and manipulated over the subsequent months from Nate’s production studio, Echo Base, in Mount Holly, VT, and Reed’s home base, The Barn. The album was mixed by Andrew Oedel at Ghost Hit, and mastered by Anni Abigail Casella.
Since its release via Strange Library Records on February 23rd, 2024, i know i know i know has reached over 125,000 spotify streams, and praise from numerous outlets like The Boston Globe, Under The Radar, We All Want Someone To Shout For, Glide Magazine, Various Small Flames, and more