Clay Hips

Originating as a melodic and jangly indie pop outfit with its two central figures based on opposite sides of Europe, Clay Hips operates as the creative vehicle for Kenji Kitahama and Andrew Leavitt. The project’s gentle guitar pop first surfaced in the mid-2000s via a track on a Matinee Records compilation, growing directly out of the pair’s earlier band the Fairways, a well-regarded San Francisco ensemble whose recordings received praise throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan near the start of the millennium.

After the Fairways dissolved in 2004, Kitahama and Leavitt relocated from the Bay Area to Germany and Finland respectively. While each explored separate musical activities, they continued discussing a fresh collaboration; once Leavitt settled in Ireland, they began writing new material during annual visits. Their first release, the song “Failure,” appeared on Matinee Records’ The Matinee Hit Parade compilation in 2007, with further tracks surfacing on Matinee collections in 2010 and 2013 as the long-distance partners slowly accumulated additional songs.

In 2018, at the request of Barcelona label Annika Records, Kitahama and Leavitt rerecorded their three existing singles and finished the remaining tracks for a self-titled full-length debut issued that summer.