Clone - Dividing Line
Post-punk outfit Clone - a Brooklyn-based supergroup featuring members of The Veldt, Dead Leaf Echo, Namesake and Pilot to Gunner - announces their debut record 'CL. 1' and presents the lead track 'Dividing Line', a song about how Donald Trump tried to start a class war within the USA.
The 'CL. 1' album will be released via Portland-based Little Cloud Records and North Carolina's 5BC Records this summer. The video for 'Dividing Line', which involved claymation, drawing and digital rendering, was created by Preston Spurlock.
Clone is led by LG Galleon, best known as frontman of Dead Leaf Echo, On this album, he is joined by NYC musicians Gregg Giufree (Pilot to Gunner), Max Idas and Dominick Turi. Live, he is joined by Paul Liziragga (Namesake) and Alex Cox (The Veldt). Clone started playing shows in summer of 2019, building their fanbase organically, brick by brick, word of their incendiary live shows spreading. Each time they play, more are won over.
Operating in what’s rapidly becoming an antiquated model, they’re a unit of parts. Egalitarian in their writing process, one where songs are built upon inchoate sparks offered freely by any member, letting the jams run free in their rehearsal space until there’s a complete song, guided by the alchemy of intuition. There’s no rule book here, and no one defining member, but there is a palpable chemistry.
Co-produced by LG Galleon, their debut record 'CL.1' is a damn auspicious opening volley, completely recorded and mixed by NYC legendary producer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Brian Eno, John Zorn, Herbie Hancock, Iggy Pop, Helmet, Dresden Dolls, Cop Shoot Cop) at his famed BC Studio, built by Brian Eno, and mastered by Fred Kevorkian.
Clone's lyrics involve the struggles and critiques of the working person's daily life. About the new single 'Dividing Line', LG Galleon says, "This song is called the “Donnie” song. Yes it’s about Donald Trump. It’s when our former failed leader tried to incite a race riot during the Pandemic. The chorus goes “Get up, cause Donnie wants to start a fire, get up cause Donnie wants to start a riot, start a fire fire fire fire fire fire fight."
Evocative, in ethos and ambition, of a time when music still could change lives. Rooted in belief in its galvanizing, redemptive power, the kind which used to be written for the lonely and the scarred and the diffident (before something truly was lost), something deeply enmeshed within the human psyche that could be shared. Clone are fitfully reclaiming this, which at its crux, is the imagination of youth. It’s captured vividly here, and their private universe of sonic exploration is now open to all.
'Dividing Line' is out now, available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. As of June 21, the 'CL. 1' album will be released in digital and CD formats.
