With a drum track that invokes an assertive swagger and an anxious underbelly, vocalist Amber Renee tells the listener about something that will truly never be the same on “Lay Back.”
“Lay back/ The world is spinning on
Right now/ It’s slipping off my tongue
Lay down/ Who cares what’s going on
Lay back/ Lay back/ Lay back till it’s gone.”
The whirlwind suddenly stops, and the listener is thrust back into the more subdued verse section, anchored down by producer Graham Marsh’s synthetic harp and metronomic electronic drum kit. Renee’s nonchalant yet forceful vocal melodies return to a hypnotic rhythm with horns receding in the background. The lyrical section above walks the line between bombastic and somber; forceful, yet not trying too hard.
You may have been unknowingly introduced to CLAVVS if you have watched Netflix's "You," "Locke & Key," “Tiny Pretty Things,” ABC's "Grand Hotel” or MTV's "Catfish: The TV Show.” Since their formation in Atlanta in 2013, the indie-pop duo has put out a consistent array of albums, EPs, covers and singles. Now based in Brooklyn, many of their songs have been incorporated into television shows for their cinematic and ethereal aesthetic.
Their discography is full of twists and turns, a sign of a pair of artists continually pushing themselves to reinvent. Their debut album “halfblood” was released in 2016, followed a year later by “World Underwater” in 2017 and “O” in 2021. Between their albums, they have also gifted their listeners with various singles, EPs, remixes and covers.
Roughly a decade into their creative partnership, Renee and Marsh, popularly known as CLAVVS, are still discovering what it means to be a creative musical duo. With Graham behind the musical production and instrumentation and Amber handling songwriting and vocals, the pair has steadily grown into itself year after year. While they are anchored down by common musical touchpoints, they continue to evade precise categorization.
Despite the saturated market of the current indie-pop genre, CLAVVS has managed to carve out their own lane in the already cutthroat Brooklyn indie scene, racking up an impressive 114,00 monthly listeners on Spotify and releasing more than three albums to streaming services, all the while keeping their music authentic and wholly independent.
Although the duo went on to have a prolific creative output, their origin story is as mundane as it gets: the two artists met at Graham’s 2013 house party in Atlanta. As Amber remembers it, the party was primarily for musically-inclined artists in the surrounding area. Amber had been searching for a producer to work with and they stayed in contact before eventually deciding to work together. At first, Renee said that they wrote pieces with the intention of “passing them on to other artists.”
“But, as we worked together and got to know each other more, we were like, ‘Maybe this is like a thing,’” Renee said. “And so, we decided to make a band instead.”
CLAVVS, an indie-pop band that originated out of Atlanta, has been described as an eclectic mix of indie-pop, vapor soul and electro-pop. (Courtesy of CLAVVS)
Long before the duo’s creation, each half of the artistic pair had a long and winding road leading to their current roles. For Renee, her eventual success came after an epiphany while studying at Georgia State University. Conversely, Marsh spent years grinding through the producer circuit and working freelance production for notable A-list musicians to attain his current position. Despite their different disciplines, both of their paths converged on that one, fateful night.
CLAVVS has also gone through an impressive metamorphosis since their debut album’s release in 2016. Marsh and Renee both echoed how they have slowly learned what it means to be CLAVVS over time. Though they have retained their instant connection, they have also evolved dramatically, both as individual creators and as a duo.
“Over time, we’ve learned how to be CLAVVS,” Marsh said. “‘What does it mean to be CLAVVS? What is becoming a better version of itself?’ And, it has changed over time.”
Although Marsh said the band’s identity is always changing, they’ve largely solidified their process of creating songs, with one technique — kickstarted by Renee and reinforced by Marsh — becoming their standard protocol.
“I’ll just write right in the air and I’ll bring it to Graham and just kind of express myself,” Renee said. “I’ll try to explain what I’m hearing and then he takes it and puts it through his filter. We take time to figure out chords and tempo and the skeleton of the song.”
Renee also explained the elusive nature of songwriting, noting that her best works have come from not forcing her will upon the already enigmatic creative process.
“The songs kind of reveal themselves to me,” Renee said. “I find the way that I philosophically think about songwriting is that the song is already there, in the ether and another dimension, and I’m just listening on a level where I hear bits and pieces of it.”
Marsh’s impressive resume has also informed his perspective on music production. His time working with creatives including CeeLo Green, Kid Cudi, Ludacris and Lauryn Hill has taught him to embrace the motto of “serving the song” and being intentional with production choices.
“My job as a producer is to have the best listener experience for the person on the other side of the speakers,” Marsh said. “To have them be able to enjoy the song and not get in the way, not to overproduce.”
Marsh fondly recalled how legendary producer Pharrell Williams insisted over the phone to his mixer that he wanted the song to “sound like pots and pans.” The mixer understood exactly what he meant and listened to Pharrell’s advice. His intentionality stuck with Graham and has informed his production style ever since.
While the rules continue to change, one’s intentionality should not. Renee aptly titled this ability to be deliberate as possessing “musical discernment.”
“It’s something you learn over a long period of time,” Renee said. “When you start out making music, most people are all ego … Often you end up shooting yourself in the foot because it’s not serving the song. I’ve certainly learned that the hard way, but I’m at a place where we both can get out of our own way.”
Through artistic evolution, the duo has also successfully pivoted toward another musical venture called “dayaway.” The catalyst for “dayaway” was Renee’s time spent on the beaches of New York, becoming obsessed with the rocky beaches and starting to write songs about them.
“It’s beachy and surfy indie-pop,” she said. “We started releasing it last year and it just kind of took off in a way, really unexpectedly, but it was completely cool. We’re getting ready to release some music for that this summer.”
This side project was inspired by the likes of dream-pop icons like Mazzy Star, the Cure, the Beach Boys, Tame Impala and “...the legacy of beach music,” Marsh said. Marsh also noted that this venture was much more informed by real guitars and a departure from a more electronic sound in CLAVVS.
Despite both of their respective passions for music, some roadblocks have impeded the true bliss of making music. Recently, post-pandemic venue policies and the financial reality of touring have halted their current musical performances, a phenomenon that has run rampant across the industry.
“I love performing live,” Renee said. “However, I don’t like it post-pandemic. In fact, we’ve stopped doing shows. It’s been weird. The whole thing is very difficult.”
Graham corroborated this sentiment, attributing much of this tension to shifting venue policies in the wake of the global pandemic.
“Everything is more expensive, so venues want to take 20% of your merch,” Graham said. “You have to raise ticket prices due to inflation. It’s just a brutal landscape.”
Despite this, the duo hopes that demand will increase and that touring can become financially viable in the future. Their most recent album was made with the original purpose of having more upbeat songs to perform live.
“With ‘O,’ the intention was to make a record we wanted to play live, something we had never done before,” Graham said. “We really went into it with that intention, to make more up-tempo dance songs and have higher energy shows.”
Though the industry politics can be quite daunting at times, Marsh and Renee persist forward because of the sheer power of music. Their lengthy discography is a testament to the genuine passion the duo exudes toward music.
From Atlanta to Brooklyn and beyond, the pair continues to authentically blend indie pop sensibilities with electronic dance, “serving the song” along the way.
