There’s something about (Sandy) Alex G‘s music that still feels like home. All of the years we lived in Philadelphia, Alexander Giannascoli was always around. Whether quietly enjoying a night in the back of El Bar, supporting friends at a basement show somewhere in North Philly, or just walking on the other side of the street, he was unassumingly inhabiting the same circles as we did. Never one to call attention to the veritable mountain of incredible music he seemed to be constantly making, he’s always been an ideal fit in a music scene and city where community is valued.
We first saw (Sandy) Alex G at Norristown’s own Walla Fest in 2014. Towards the beginning of what would become his rise to popularity, it was the perfect place to get to know his extensive Bandcamp catalog in its purest live form. We’ve seen him play in a lot of places and odd circumstances since then but always seem to find ourselves surrounded by his Philly music friends, making each show feel much the same. His live performances echo his compositions in a combination of oddities and darkness, somehow shifting into a soothing pulse that, to us, really reflects Philadelphia.
Through the course of his label-backed career at Domino, he’s continued to explore and cleverly manipulate the often sinister but imaginative world of sound he honed in his early years. His latest tune, “Gretel,” indicates he’s found a sweet spot amongst the tethers of his experimentation. Articulating his sonic ideas more meticulously than ever, Giannascoli turns “Hansel and Gretel” into a tale of overwhelming greed. The track, much like his reinvention of the tale, is a clever one. Led by distorted background vocals in a hell-bent mantra, “Gretel” creeps in with a slow build of a symphony of foreboding guitar and synth. The centerpiece of the song remains the same as many of his best songs of the past: an unrelenting, stripped-down refrain that seamlessly rises back into his piecemeal spectrum of transcendental sound. It’s the kind of special song we can already hear the rest of the Philly music community screaming back at him in unison from the back of a show.
(Sandy) Alex G’s new album, House of Sugar, comes out September 13th on Domino and you can pre-order it here.
