The Hours: High Noon Cautious Clay

• 1 Green Screen (1pm) 02:10
• 2 Ivy (2pm) 02:24
• 3 Trail Mix (3pm) 02:24
• 4 The Light (4pm) 02:25
• 5 Red Blossom (5pm) 02:41
• 6 Wave Chaser (6pm) 02:26
• 7 Mood Swing (7pm) 02:09
• 8 Shadow of a Doubt (8pm) 02:50
• Total Runtime 19:29

Info for The Hours: High Noon

The High Noon chapter captures a period of growth for Cautious Clay, both personally and artistically. One can hear both the maturity and sonic shift in “Green Screen (1PM).” Draped in a reggae beat and newfound wisdom, Cautious rolls with the punches and a pep in his step. Life is seen not as a great unknown but as a wealth of possibility, a canvas (or green screen) upon which a person may map out their own style, journey, and meaning. It’s the type of sage advice that comes with life lived, something that comes with time.

“The Hours: High Noon is a conclusion to the Hours album saga,” explains Cautious. “It feels like a middle ground between morning and night, sonically. I wanted to branch into reggae and some downtempo stuff with this album, which felt really refreshing for me to explore.”

The sunny disposition in “Green Screen (1PM)” warms the rest of The Hours: High Noon, a record rooted in emotional maturity, self-reflection, and sonic exploration. Cautious delves further into himself here, able to discuss frustrating situations (misaligned relationships) alongside unconventional ones (open relationships) with candor and candy-sweet hooks.

Expanding on the world introduced throughout the Hours series, the album finds Cautious embracing a warmer, more lived-in sound while continuing to refine his genre-blurring approach. His songwriting remains introspective and deeply human, balancing vulnerability with optimism as he moves towards a new creative chapter. The Hours may mark the end of one story, but it begins another for Cautious Clay.

Last Spring, Cautious Clay kicked off this series with The Hours: Morning, a conceptual eight-track project equal parts mixtape and emotive timetable, exploring the feeling, color, and emotional landscape of each morning hour. Created after a move to Philly and an evolution of Cautious’ creative process, the project transcends genre and blends pop precision with elements of alternative R&B, jazz, and indie rock with open-ended reflection. It marks a fresh chapter for the genre-blending artist, following the success of his jazz-infused album KARPEH. From the calm of dawn to the energy of late morning, The Hours: Morning showcases Cautious’ versatility and evolving sound. Cautious followed up that album in Fall 2025 with The Hours: Night, which kicked up the tempo with its funk-infused sound including a collaboration with Q-Tip and Raphael Saadiq on “5th Floor (10pm)”. Less clear-eyed than Morning, Night tackles the unpredictability and uncertainty of the evening. Together, The Hours: Morning and The Hours: Night sketch two interconnected portraits of time: daylight measured against moonlight, order against freedom, routine against spontaneity. The true challenge for him came with High Noon, which refers to a time of day that Cautious finds “nebulous” in its atmosphere.

Beyond his own artistry, Cautious has established himself as a highly sought-after songwriter and producer, collaborating with Billie Eilish, John Mayer, John Legend, Khalid, Kavinsky, Melanie Martinez, Remi Wolf, and most recently, Tycho. Following the release of his acclaimed EPs Resonance and Table of Context, he delivered his full-length 2021 debut Deadpan Love, a nuanced exploration of the complexities of human connection that earned him praise from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Fader, PAPER, and more. With his 2023 album KARPEH, Cautious reached new artistic heights, delivering a more intentional and sonically rich project. This bold evolution offered an intimate portrayal of his journey, his past, and his family life, solidifying his place as a singular voice in modern music and one to watch.

Cautious Clay

Cautious Clay
Since 2017, Cautious Clay has been steadily building a devoted fanbase with his heartfelt songwriting and a unique sound that moves fluidly between pop, alternative R&B, and indie rock. He began receiving wide recognition with the 2018 release of Blood Type featuring the breakthrough single “Cold War,” a naked call for emotional honesty and transparency that resonated deeply with listeners and has since been streamed more than 150 million times. The song was featured on Issa Rae’s hit HBO TV show, Insecure, and Olivia Wilde’s movie, Booksmart, and was interpolated by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff on “London Boy” from the pop star’s album Lover. Cautious’ other outside writing and production credits include working with Billie Eilish, John Mayer, John Legend, Khalid, Kavinsky, Melanie Martinez, Remi Wolf, and more. Following two more EPs—Resonance and Table of Context—Cautious released his debut full-length, Deadpan Love in 2021, delivering on his early promise with an album that centered on the balance between oneself and others. With his Blue Note debut KARPEH, Cautious Clay offers an even more intimate glimpse inside his highly biographical artistic vision.

“Ever since I started playing music, it was always about the feel,” says Josh Karpeh, AKA Cautious Clay. “There are a lot of things in art that you can learn by practicing or studying, but feel’s not one of them. It’s something you’ve just got to have.”

It’s that feel, that deep emotional intuition that fuels Cautious Clay’s sound. Blending R&B, hip-hop, and experimental indie, his productions are dark and engrossing, built upon a unique combination of organic instruments, digital programming, and soulful vocals. He writes with unflinching honesty, engaging in deeply personal self-reflection with boldly vulnerable and vividly poetic lyrics. At times recalling contemporaries like James Blake or Sampha, Cautious is a profoundly modern songwriter and a forward- thinking producer, but he’s also steeped in the past, quick to cite Burt Bacharach as an idol and credit Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones as ever-present influences in his artful arrangements.

“I used to think about songwriting and production as completely separate,” he explains, “but when I learned how to merge those two things, that’s when I was able to start creating music that really connected with people.”

Originally from Cleveland, OH, Cautious began his artistic journey at the age of seven when he picked up classical flute. His studies led him deep into the worlds of blues and jazz, and by the time he hit college in Washington, D.C., he’d added a number of other instruments to his repertoire in addition to songwriting and production. Now based in Brooklyn, Cautious is consistently working on music for both his own project and for others.

This album contains no booklet.