Hanh Truong on September 8th, 2020

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Clay Priskorn dropped his debut single under the alias Friends of Clay last month. A pensive reflection of life after loss, “What Percent Are Monsters” is cathartic with a tinge of hopefulness.

From Agoura Hills, Priskorn is not new to the music scene. The songwriter, singer and producer has worked on projects with a variety of artists, from rapper PnB Rock to newly minted Songwriters Hall of Fame member Jack Tempchin.

The indie singer went out on his own as a teenager, releasing an album in 2013, “Bury ’em Deep,” and a handful of singles five years later, using his real name. The new track from Friends of Clay is a peek into another side of Priskorn, one that is hued with a modern sound rooted in classic pop.

“Early morning rain and I can’t explain / All this heartache falling down on me,” he sings to noodly guitar notes. “What do you do to forget someone? / You don’t look back, you never look back.” Priskorn opens up lonely wounds with his gentle vocals and wistful lyrics, but the guitar-centric melody is like a brush of cool air to lessen the burn.

Priskorn wrote, performed and produced the song himself, and created the story behind the accompanying claymation music video after teaching himself how to do stop-motion video during the pandemic.

“My approach to music is storytelling through an audio and visual lens,” the 27-year-old says. “The claymation style came to me in a moment of inspiration, so I built my artistic skills and ran with it. I love building my claymation worlds because the characters are essentially ambiguous. They may have no race, religion, even gender at times. This gives me the ability to focus on a message that everyone can relate to.”

Friends of Clay plans to release more singles as a part of his upcoming self-titled, self-produced EP. Continuing his mixed-media endeavors, the songs will have each of their own claymation visuals.

||| Watch: The video for “What Percent Are Monsters”

||| Also: Stream the song here