NYC based artist/musician/songwriter, Clara Joy, is announcing her first full length album, What We Have Now. Due to be released on May 23rd via Shimmy-Disc, this is Clara Joy’s debut LP for the label, with her prior releases being digital-only & self released. What We Have Now was recorded in her NYC home over the course of several years, and was co-produced with Kramer, who completed the LP at his studio in North Carolina in December 2024.
What We Have Now is a love letter to New York City, written by a breaking heart weathering the deep indigo night of a soul realizing dawn will release it from the dried tears of youth. There is no brighter or harsher wasteland of self-discovery than the one in which we see that childhood is a dream and the Now is something we will have to fabricate alone, from those broken mirror shards of memories in service to a world that does not seem to know how to care for us any longer.
Speaking of Clara, Kramer says that she is, “…what we have all been waiting for since the passing of Daniel Johnston – a new performer who sees and hears the world around her, agonizes over its endless parade of absurdities, and responds by setting out to create art that transcends itself and conveys the kind of love and optimism that helps us to survive the maelstroms. In short, Clara Joy’s artistry is miraculous in every way, and in every sense of the word. It’s embedded in her genes, and this debut LP bears only a hint of what’s to come. There’s just no telling where this brave young artist will take us.”
Today, we get the first taste of What We Have Now in the form of the single “Breakdown.” The track is pastoral dream-pop authored by the times we are living though, weaving in spoken passages to sweeten the pangs of pain shot through with shimmering notes that will keep us holding fast, onward, weathering life’s storms and murmuring tides. The single is shared alongside a video. Clara says about “Breakdown”, “This is a song about feeling a sense of doom about the world and its collapse and how one tries to cope with it.”
Full of feeling and shepherded by Clara’s intensely honest vocals, these songs transcend place and time to share a universe of wonders beneath the hard-wrought questioning of the deeply human condition we are all living within.
Clara Joy is a songwriter full of melody and vision. These ‘home’ recordings were made by Clara in NYC between 2020 and 2024. The songs were then Arranged, Mixed & Mastered by Kramer in December 2024 in his Studio in the mountains of North Carolina.
Clara is at the dawn of her career and Shimmy-Disc is proud to bring this amazing work to the world.
