Two years after graduating from Cortland High School, an award-winning musician has released her second album, which she wrote and co-produced. And this time, she didn’t have to do it remotely.
Cloey Tierno, who won a Syracuse Area Music Award for Best Pop Album of the Year at age 16, has released her sophomore album at 19.
The 15-song album, “Inward,” was recorded at Rose Hall, mixed by Mark Bengtson, and co-produced by Cloey Tierno and Chris Merkley. Her first album, “I Fell in Love with the Rain,” was produced mostly remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. With “Inward,” she got to take a more hands-on approach during the production, Merkley said.
“She’s a very talented artist in general, and a lot of the production ideas she brought to the table,” Merkley said.
“I told myself when I went into it that I wanted to be very intentional,” Tierno said. “A lot of that involved speaking up about what my ideas were to other musicians, and I had to force myself to do that, because I’ve never been put in a position where I led the way.”
“Inward” features the members of Driftwood: Claire Byrne, Joey Arcuri and Sam Fishman. Phil Grajko of Root Shock and Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist Thomas Bryan Eaton also played on the album.
“I hadn’t even had to think about it; when I’m writing a song, it’s just a song,” Tierno said. “It took me to a place where I had to think ‘How do I tell this with other instruments, and really tell a story with it?’”
“It has to be a well-written song, and Cloey is a consistently great songwriter,” Merkley said. “The songwriting is really great with Cloey, and I think that everything else after that is kind of like gravy.”
“Inward” features a new level of raw honesty, she said.
“I just really hope that it resonates with people on a deeper level,” Tierno said. “I tried to be very intentional with how I was writing, and I hope that people can connect with that.”
Tierno will play the full album in an listening-room setting Dec. 6 at Rose Hall.
“She’s matured as a songwriter,” Merkley said. “She was incredibly ahead of her time for her first album. It was insane to me that she had written some of those songs when she was 15 or 16. Her life experience that she has had since then has deepened her songwriting.”
