Cloud Nothings close out A.V. Undercover season 9 with some Iron & Wine
Will it become as polarizing as the band's take on "Clocks"? Only time will tell.
A.V. Undercover season nine ends as it began: with grotesque masks and a unique rendition of a song rife with vulnerability. In their Undercover return, indie rockers Cloud Nothings challenged themselves by selecting Iron & Wine’s “Naked As We Came,” a sweet, meditative track off Our Endless Numbered Days that is well outside their usual purview. Rather than produce a stripped-down tune in the vein of some of this season’s earlier covers, Cloud Nothings scuff up Sam Beam’s alternately bright and mournful original, frontman Dylan Baldi’s crooning gradually giving way to screeching. You can check it out below.
Cloud Nothings went even more afield in their previous Undercover appearance back in 2017, when they tackled—with layer upon layer of electronic noise and meows—Coldplay’s “Clocks,” which Baldi said is one of his favorite songs (seriously). Now the Cleveland band, which released its ninth studio album, Final Summer, in April of this year, wrap ups A.V. Undercover season nine. It was a truncated season, to be sure, but one full of great performances. I’d like to thank all of the bands who joined us in this revival, as well as our publisher Josh Jackson and director of video production Brad Wagner for hosting, audio engineers Juan Soria and David Turk, and the folks at Second Take Sound in Midtown Manhattan, NY and Marquez Clásico in Los Angeles, CA. And of course, I’d like to thank you all for listening and providing such great suggestions for our song list. I know we didn’t get to all of them, but we’ll be back in force for season 10. Stay tuned for the call for song suggestions.