First You Build a Cloud is an album by guitarists Andy Summers and Ben Verdery on the Rare Recordings label.

Although their musical background was somewhat different (Summers coming from rock and jazz, and Verdery from classical guitar), both musicians realized that they had played in each others main style on multiple occasions in the past.

[2] The concept to record an album together eventually solidified when Summers and Verdery were approached by classical composer Ingram Marshall to perform in a concerto for acoustic and electric guitar he was putting together called Dark Florescence.

With the exception of cover renditions of The Police's "Bring on the Night" and Johann Sebastian Bach's "Sarabande" and a brand new composition by Summers ("Now I'm Free"), all the remaining pieces in the album are the result of improvisations in the studio.

An extra track, "Brotherhood of the Grape" (a reference to the musicians' shared love for wine) was recorded but left out of the album.