Cautious Clay doesn’t romanticize mornings. He’s not waking up at dawn to meditate or journaling with a pour-over. If anything, he’s doing the opposite.
“Most of my real work happens not in the morning,” he says with a laugh. “If I can help it.”
And yet, here he is, releasing The Hours: Morning — an album rooted in early-day energy, quiet rituals, and the weird in-between space before the day fully takes shape. But for Clay — real name Joshua Karpeh — the concept had less to do with alarm clocks and more to do with atmosphere. What does a certain hour feel like? What kind of music belongs there?
Listen to our interview with Cautious Clay on episode 1250 of The RELEVANT Podcast.
“It became a creative exercise,” he explains. “Trying to map emotions to different times of day, based on how life actually feels.”
That idea sent him down a rabbit hole. Over the course of a year, he wrote nearly 60 songs — some brand new, others dug up from old demos — assigning each to an hour of the day based on its vibe, not its BPM. The eight tracks that made the cut form the morning portion of what may eventually be a full-day musical cycle.
“I wasn’t trying to make a huge statement,” he says. “I just wanted to make something that felt good to exist inside. Something that fit whatever mood you’re in when the day starts.”
The result is subtle and immersive, textured and unhurried. A song like “Traffic” captures the mental clutter of a crowded commute — not just the cars, but the chaos in your head. “No Champagne” gently questions whether love needs a wedding to be real. Even a karaoke song written for the 5 a.m. crowd gets a spot.
“I think a lot of people are craving something slower,” he says. “We’re constantly being distracted. Constantly being sold something. This project was about resisting that speed — acknowledging time without being ruled by it.”
The idea came into focus during a year of transition. Karpeh moved from New York to Philadelphia, started painting more, spent time playing basketball. He built the album in his home studio, mostly alone, pulling in collaborators only when necessary. The solitude worked. It gave him space to experiment — and to let older songs evolve. One track on the album includes vocals he recorded seven years ago.
“I’d tried to put it out so many times,” he says. “But the production never felt right. It finally clicked during this project, when I could see how it fit.”
Compared to Deadpan Love — his last full-length, live band-centered album — The Hours: Morning is a more inward-facing record. It was built in layers, piece by piece, over time. The concept gave structure to a season of uncertainty, and the result is both thoughtful and surprisingly easy to live with.
“This is definitely more of a headphones album,” Karpeh says. “It’s not trying to be everything at once.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s without depth. The themes running through The Hours: Morning are emotionally grounded: disconnection, routine, love, mental noise. There’s a sense of being caught in between — between where you are and where you thought you’d be, between the person you are becoming and the one you left behind. It’s not melancholy. It’s honest.
“I’ve done the more existential, personal record,” he says. “This one’s more emotional than biographical. It’s about experiences everyone has in some way.”
That sense of shared experience is part of what makes the album work. It doesn’t demand your attention — it rewards it. There’s something refreshingly countercultural about a record that lets itself breathe in a world that rarely pauses. Karpeh doesn’t want to compete with your feed. He just wants to make something that helps you feel where you’re at.
“I think we all deal with anxiety and comparison,” he says. “But if you can pace yourself, stay grounded, that’s where things start to open up.”
It’s advice he’s taken to heart. Now 32, Karpeh has been in music full-time since age 23, after stints in real estate and international affairs. He’s built his career slowly and deliberately, steering clear of self-imposed timelines or external pressures.
“There’s always that voice saying you should have this by 30 or win that by 35,” he says. “But I’ve worked really hard not to let that get to me. I’ve just tried to stay present and let things come.”
That approach is already shaping what comes next. The “morning” album is just part one — more hours are on the way. Afternoon. Evening. Maybe midnight. Each with its own sound, its own perspective.
And that concept will carry into his upcoming tour, which he says will be more immersive than anything he’s done before. “People don’t get super creative with live shows anymore,” he says. “It’s just lights. But I want it to feel like something. I want the visuals to actually support the music in a way that’s intentional.”
He’s tight-lipped on the details, but promises a carefully curated show that reflects the theme of time passing — not in a literal sense, but emotionally. “It’s not just a performance,” he says. “It’s an experience.”
If The Hours: Morning is any indication, that experience won’t be about spectacle. It’ll be about presence. About slowing down just enough to realize where you are. Not racing toward the next thing. Not escaping the moment. Just listening — closely — to whatever hour you’re in.
“It’s funny,” Karpeh says. “I’m bad at time, but I think about it constantly.”
