My collaboration with CloudÏa started in 2023. We had already been playing together in a Katy Perry tribute band called Katy Perdy, and our mutual musical respect led us to consider working on original music.
She had several ideas tucked away, but one in particular caught my attention. It was incredibly catchy yet featured an unusual structure with odd time signatures. I couldn’t get that melody out of my head for days, so I suggested helping her develop two demos and see if we could approach some producers.
CloudÏa had sketched out her ideas in a notebook, but they weren’t complete—one song was missing a chorus, another needed a bridge and an outro. The first step was to finalize the structures and add instrumental melodies. While working on the arrangements, we wrote a song together that tells our own story because… well, we’re a couple, and we wanted to share that through music. That’s how No But was born.
Once we finished three demos—though I can’t reveal the titles of the first two yet—we decided to keep going and wrote three more songs together.
A Summer Dedicated to Music
As we all know, a debut album is often self-produced, so we chose to take full creative control. We spent nearly the entire summer refining every sonic detail. A dear friend of mine allowed us to record his father’s stunning Steinway piano. We recorded real string sections, I bought a beautiful new semi-hollow guitar for specific parts, and we even had timpani recorded remotely in South America. It was a truly intense and immersive process.
The only aspect we weren’t completely satisfied with was the vocal recordings. So, we redid them at Il Merlo Studio, where we also finalized the mixing. CloudÏa was absolutely flawless—she recorded three songs a day with incredible professionalism.
The Journey So Far
This project has been immensely rewarding! As of now, three of the six tracks we produced are available on streaming platforms, with the remaining songs set for release throughout the year.
I can’t wait for you to hear them all! From this page, you can access both the music on Spotify and the music video for My House By The Sea.
