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Claude
a lot’s gonna change

“This album is a snapshot of my early-to-mid twenties — formative, sometimes confusing years.” That’s Chicago singer-songwriter Claudia Ferme, AKA Claude, on her debut album, a lot’s gonna change. For years she’s tinkered away, self-releasing a 12” EP titled Enactor in 2021, and playing shows across the city. Her first full-length has been a long time in the making, with sketches of ditties happening as early as 2021. Since then, she’s refined her craft — words, melodies, and sound — crystallizing in this collection, buttressed by woozy, lush production from Windy City wunderkind Michael Mac (Tasha, Devin Shaffer, Mia Joy). It’s an evocative, relatable assemblage, detailing the peaks and pitfalls of early adult life, all the while maintaining a sense of humor, a bit of hope, and piles of earworms.

Writing a lot’s gonna change was straightforward. Where Claude’s past music was built on intentionally constructed worlds, lacing social commentary within pop constraints, a lot’s gonna change is both introspective and expansive, rooted in real-life experience while crossing new musical territory. Claude relies on intuition to write: “I don’t like sitting and thinking, like, today I’m gonna write a song! It has to come naturally.”

a lot’s gonna change incorporates many modes of pop music, making for a dynamic, invigorating listen. “Pop can encompass a lot,” Claude says, “and I like that: song structures that are even and catchy; even if the songs aren’t fast-paced, stuff sticks in your mind.” On “roses,” Claude’s winding vocal melody traces the evolution of a perspective change with floral synths and spiky percussion. She explains: “the way we torture ourselves or are not very kind to ourselves, and how that manifests in certain situations we’re in. Going through something and realizing, maybe I’m not the person that I thought I was.” Elsewhere, lush arrangements adorn “twenty something” (“I'd rather be hurt by my own doing / than be let down by someone else / At least that's what I tell myself"), “claustrophobia," and “meet me,” songs that track anxiety, hope, and emotional distance.

Your twenties are hard. It’s the first decade you’re expected to be an adult, and often the decade where you first establish your own priorities. It’s where you do a whole lot of growth, too, and on a lot’s gonna change, this maturation can be witnessed in both the words and sonics. Rarely do growing pains sound so sweet.

released August 12, 2022