Baldi was majoring in audio recording at college when he dropped out to focus on the music he was making at home. After a few months, he uploaded the songs "Hey Cool Kid" and "Whaddaya Wanna Know" to his MySpace page, which led to gigs with Woods and Real Estate, and 2010 singles released via Group Tightener and Old Flame Records. That year, Cloud Nothings also released a split cassette with Campfires and the Turning On EP. On the strength of all this music, Baldi signed to Carpark in the U.S. and to Wichita Records in the U.K.; Turning On was reissued with selected tracks from his other singles.

Along with dates with Wavves, Titus Andronicus, and Best Coast, Baldi began work on Cloud Nothings' full-length debut in Baltimore, Maryland's Copycat Building studio with producer Chester Gwazda. The results of those sessions became Cloud Nothings, which arrived in January 2011. Later that year, Baldi and his band went into the studio with Steve Albini; the result of these sessions was 2012's much rawer, heavier Attack on Memory. That July, the Live @ the Grog Shop EP, which captured a particularly blistering set from Cloud Nothings' tour, was released. Following the completion of their heavy touring schedule, Baldi took some time to put the finishing touches on new material. Soon after, the band headed into a Hoboken, New Jersey studio with producer John Congleton to lay down tracks for the trio's fourth album, Here and Nowhere Else, which arrived in 2014. That year, Baldi collaborated with Wavves' Nathan Williams on No Life for Me, a split album released by Williams' Ghost Ramp label in 2015. Cloud Nothings returned with new music in 2017. Life Without Sound was a more polished-sounding set recorded in El Paso, Texas with producer John Goodmanson. ~ Heather Phares