South London’s Cloud Studies make dreampop feel porous, as if every guitar line has been left in the rain and every vocal has learned to pass through plaster. The trio of Adam Cresswell, Martin J Langthorne, and Michael Malley describe their sound as “gothgaze,” and on Hiding Place, the closing track from their self-titled debut EP, that identity comes into sharp relief: shoegaze mass and dreampop haze pulled toward post-punk pressure, with a darker psychological charge running beneath the surface.
Musically, Hiding Place shows Cloud Studies at their darkest and most direct. The layered guitars open out into great sheets, yet a taut low-end pressure keeps the track from floating away. Adam Cresswell’s vocals sit inside the mix like a presence glimpsed through curtains: intimate, distant, and difficult to place. Around him, Martin J Langthorne and Michael Malley’s guitars add abrasive edges that rub against the more lustrous wash of the arrangement, while bass and synths pull the song deeper into its unsettled atmosphere.
The band’s influences are quite evident: Slowdive’s hazy textures, The Cure’s catchy rhythms and emotional structure, Joy Division’s tension, and vocals reminiscent of Jim Reid from The Jesus and Mary Chain; they blend these influences freely. Hiding Place embodies shoegaze, dreampop, goth, and post-punk, all while maintaining the loose vibe of a band still exploring the boundaries of their sound. The outcome is striking but never calming. Each surge of noise amplifies the feeling of ongoing pursuit.
Hiding Place is a song that explores obsession, stalking, and the uneasy space between fascination and fear, and the video follows that emotional logic without turning it into blunt drama. Filmed by Abi Moore and edited by Cloud Studies guitarist Martin J Langthorne, the clip places the band inside a field of superimposed images, psychedelic colour, blurred forms, and visual interference. Performance becomes less a fixed document than a signal passing through damaged glass. Faces and bodies appear, dissolve, and return, caught between presence and disappearance, as if the viewer has been made complicit in an act of watching that has already gone too far.
Watch the video for Hiding Place below:
Across the debut EP, Cloud Cartography (Extended), Dreams About, Avenue, and Hiding Place trace a widening arc through shoegaze, dreampop, ambient texture, folktronica detail, and post-punk dread. Releasing June 19 2026, physically via The Weird Beard and digitally via Happy Robots, the record presents Cloud Studies as a band with a firm sense of atmosphere and appetite. As its final statement, Hiding Place leaves the door slightly ajar.
You can catch Cloud Studies on July 4th at Hyde Park Book Club (HPBC) in Leeds, UK!
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The post South London Gothgaze Trio Cloud Studies Trace the Psychology of Dark Obsession in Video for “Hiding Place” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
