Deadpan Love, the long-awaited debut album from celebrated singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Cautious Clay, is out today via The Orchard.
The album follows an arsenal of widely-acclaimed singles ‘Strange Love’ featuring rising Chicago rapper SABA, ‘Wildfire’, ‘Karma & Friends’, ‘Roots’, ‘Dying In The Subtlety’ and ‘Agreeable’.
Cautious Clay’s debut album, Deadpan Love wraps influences from R&B, hip hop and indie pop in Cautious’ trademark sophisticated songwriting and jazz-and blues-inflected instrumentation. The album also finds Cautious collaborating with a host of notable co-writers including Tobias Jesso Jr. (Adele, HAIM), Jim-E Stack (Caroline Polachek, Empress Of), Daniel Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo, FINNEAS), Jesse Shatkin (Sia, Kelly Clarkson), Ammar Malik (Maroon 5, Halsey) and Sir Nolan (Shawn Mendes, Selena Gomez), plus a collaboration with Chicago rapper Saba.
“Deadpan Love is something that I have inside me; the way I cope with the worst of what the world has to offer,” says Cautious.
“So much of life and relationships are spent in gray areas—we mistreat the people we love and we’re friendly with the people we hate. This is an album about those complexities in friendship, investigating toxic behavior and self-worth.”
Alongside the album release is a visualizer for ‘Shook’, a single off Deadpan Love.
Cautious Clay’s previously released singles from Deadpan Love has seen wide support across the region, having entered several music channels and radio programmes’ hit charts, as well as landing numerous notable media features, with singles ‘Wildfire’ and ‘Karma & Friends’ included in “Best New Tracks” on Hypebeast and AsiaLive365. The rhapsodic single, ‘Roots’, peaked at #2 on the Hard Rock FM (Indonesia) Top 41 Chart.
Cautious Clay is currently in production on the second season of the critically acclaimed Forest Whitaker drama Godfather of Harlem. Reprising his role as the leader of the Geechee Band from the first season, he will appear throughout the season and is working on original music for the show.
Since the release of his breakout debut single ‘Cold War’ three years ago, 28-year-old Cautious Clay has been on a whirlwind ride. He’s released three EPs—Table of Context, RESONANCE, and debut Blood Type —that have earned critical praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, TIME, Complex and many more. His songs have soundtracked key scenes in films like Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart and TV shows like Issa Rae’s Insecure and Selena Gomez’s 13 Reasons Why.
He was enlisted personally by GRAMMY-winning producer FINNEAS for a remix of Billie Eilish’s breakout ‘Ocean Eyes’, his music has been sampled by Taylor Swift (Lover), and he’s written songs with heavy hitters John Legend and John Mayer. His recent single ‘Cheesin’’ saw him link up with a who’s-who of next generation talent—Claud, Remi Wolf, Still Woozy, Sophie Meiers, Melanie Faye and HXNS—to raise money for the COVID-19 Relief Fund. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Cautious Clay currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
