As a child, Camille Schmidt would sit at the kitchen table with the models who posed nude in her parents’ art studio. She occasionally wondered why, at the end of these life drawing sessions, paintings of the female body in its most vulnerable form would be given an impersonal title like “Girl with Dogs #3” or “Woman Sleeping #7.” On her debut album Nude #9, Schmidt renders revealing and personal portraits—of herself, her family, and former and future lovers. Seamlessly blending the sounds of synth-pop, folk, and punk, Schmidt’s debut album is a rapturous portrait of a songwriter realizing her full potential.
The Brooklyn-based singer and songwriter cracked open the folk-rock songbook on her debut EP Good Person, released this past June. While breakout single “Your Game” was a queer kiss-off set to the rollicking sound of alt-country legends like Lucinda Williams and Alison Krauss, there was a soft power in her wistful approach to heartbreak on “Bumblebee Drinks Lavender.” These six songs, which showcased Schmidt’s hallmark ability to balance an innately wry sense of humor with moments of quietly devastating self-reflection, hinted at something greater than the sum of their folk-rock parts.
On Nude #9, despite growing her ensemble, Schmidt sounds more present than ever before, the unflinching honesty in her lyrics front and center. Broadening her palette to include starry-eyed ambient soundscapes and thrumming post-punk rhythms while digging deeper into romance, sexuality, friendship, and her own sense of self, Nude #9 is sincere and whimsical, hilarious and deeply felt.
One listen to “XOXO” reveals an exhilarating new side of Schmidt’s vocals: The song opens with a drum machine and a featherlight synth, before introducing her voice, distorted with vocal processing but somehow stronger for its digital warps. These layers of electronic manipulation are like armor, a protection as she reveals the crevices of her inner thoughts, whether about raising a child with her best friend or the “demon in my room” she faces when she’s all alone. “RIP the girl I was playing,” she sings as the instrumentation behind her starts to twist and double on itself, half-woman, half-machine, as she annihilates the ghosts of her former self.
The songs that would become Nude #9 began to take shape last December. Working with LA-based producer Ben Zaidi, Schmidt would write at least a song a week; by the end of a few months, she had quickly amassed over 45 new songs. But realizing these songs in the studio was a new process for Schmidt, who recorded Good Person with a live band, “no headphones, and basically no overdubs,” she recalled. For Nude #9, she brought in a group of equally talented musicians—bass from frequent collaborator Eli Heath, sound sculpting from Michael Haldeman (Mk.gee), additional guitar from Sam Acchione (Alex G) and Jacob Drab (Allegra Krieger), and additional percussion from Kane Ritchotte and W. Alexander.
On album standout “Cult in Denver,” Schmidt traverses the expansive range of her voice, a staccato and slight flutter in one moment and a textured low hum in the next. “How could anyone be like you are to me?” she sings over the meditative beat of a kick drum, the verve of an electric guitar peeking out between her verses, a hint at what’s to come.
The album’s next track, “Stanley,” wields her guitar like a blowtorch, setting her words ablaze with riffs that shoot out like fireworks amidst her voice. Perhaps the sharpest example of Schmidt’s writing, “Stanley” evokes an absurd and poignant image of a woman “going nowhere,” finding strange comfort in the oddballs who seem just as lost as her. Steeped in dream logic—“I walked the plank I mean I went to the bank/ I had a hot matcha and a heart attack”—the song reflects Schmidt’s keen balance of the insane and the quotidian, honed over years of writing fiction and a prior career in comedy television.
“A lot of these songs were written completely stream of consciousness,” she said of the album. Writing without self-editing was freeing, allowing thoughts to unspool before she had a chance to doubt her intuition. The result is an album that feels at once familiar and completely new at every turn.
From the witch doctor with questionable cures on the riotously fun “Fish Pills,” to the proper names of exes and friends that mark songs along the album like dates atop diary entries, the thrilling and occasionally heartbreaking lyrics on Nude #9 are culled from Schmidt reflecting on her experiences. “I spent so much of my life not being honest with myself or other people,” Camille said of her writing process for the album. “I thought, what if I stop trying to get good with myself? With anyone else? What if I just reflect the truth of what I’ve seen? What if I just say what happened?”
Nude #9 is as indelibly strong as it is revealing. In creating such a candid self-portrait, Schmidt invites us to look directly at our own shame, her gaze warm but unflinching, honest but playful, cutting but just as forgiving.
-Official bio
Watch our latest “Short Cuts” video podcast to discover more new indie tracks.
