Long Island’s Cloud (aka Tyler Taormina and friends) debuted for Audio Antihero in 2013 with the lauded Comfort Songs LP. Taormina returns in 2018 with his new album Plays With Fire; nine songs and 32 minutes of quiet optimism and greying nostalgia, mixing the wide-eyed naïveté of Jonathan Richman with the cold-weather pop of Yo La Tengo and the fractured soundscapes of Galaxie 500.

‘Wildfire’ is the free lead single from the upcoming new album. Decidedly homemade, with processed beats and loops as well as guitar from Infinity Girl’s Nolan Eley. It’s one of the more immediately accessible moments from the new album, chanted, frantic and vibrant, recalling hints of Panda Bear Electronics, Animal Collective Psychedelia, Mazzy Star fog and Cocteau Twins atmospherics.

In “Wildfire” Taormina asserts that “every light’s racing towards the ends of everything,” but there’s hope in the darkness. A recurring theme of the new record is the passing of time. 2013’s Comfort Songs was an autumn-toned guitar record that saw Taormina coping with love and loss in his early twenties, while 2015’s dreampop-esque Zen Summer found him newly arrived in Los Angeles enjoying a warmer climate and better spirits, full of dreams and excitement. But Plays With Fire suggests that the colder months have come again, unsure of himself once again and afraid of the future.

With the years between records growing, Taormina sounds unsure of how many albums are still to come and of who is still listening. It’s an album that doesn’t appear to know if it’s a letter of introduction or a formal resignation, but it’s a perfect soundtrack for long nights and uncertain times. The polarizing voice remains, the sincerity remains, the sadness and the joy remain, but this is a new experience from Cloud.

Welcome to HeartSongs, our regularly scheduled (probably) look at songs and the people who write them. We spoke to Tyler from California’s Cloud about their recent single ‘Wildfire’.

"This track is a study of the forces of life. I listen to it now with a interesting sense of irony as the state I live in, California, has been engulfed by some of the largest fires to date. My good friend’s home was burnt down entirely, a chimney remained and the outlines of a bathroom. 

“Every flame wants to be a wildfire,” sums up my views on life as a sheer force of wild intentionality and the consequences that come with these forces “untamed”.  Greed is an easy parallel. I wanted the song to be as chaotic as a flame’s dance and as pulsating as an orgasm which is a big point of focus in the album; looking at this sensation we live with from a distance and with much skepticism, bewilderment, and awe. 

The music video is one that I conceived, produced and directed myself. I used a fairly large pool of actors that I’d worked with on a number of short films. The piece was actually developed with quite a narrative which to me still shines through but I found through the collaboration of a fantastic editor, Carson Lund that the story is best told via fractals.  A story about weariness for “the third home,” meaning the place you consider home that isn’t your house or workplace.  I’ve studied this area in our culture and it fascinates me. 

To me, it seems like a total opportunity of commiseration and community.  But in my hometown and many many other places I’ve traveled in the U.S., I find that our third homes are in danger of being tarnished by ill-intention not too dissimilar to the greed I spoke of earlier.  That’s how this video came to be.”

Wildfire lyrics;

Every flame wants to be a wildfire

Every day needs to lead to something says my mind

Looking back to when it all was better

Hard to see photos of my smiles

I know if I want to live

Something’s got to give

Every night goes on as I’m mindless in it

Every light’s racing towards the ends of everything

Hard to hold photos of the one’s who left us

Every orgasm makes you wonder oh, “is this it?”

This is it