House of Sugar album cover. (Album art via Domino Recording Company)
(Sandy) Alex G’s newest release “House of Sugar,” is somehow more than aural; the 13 songs read like a book of short stories, each of which delves headfirst into some odd specificity of a character’s life.
(Sandy) Alex G is the project of Alex Giannascoli, a 26-year-old dude from Philadelphia who writes songs with lyrics and melodies that worm their way into your head. Giannascoli has been making music with a guitar, a microphone and a laptop in his bedroom since 2010. He later self-released his first album, Race. In the years since then he has built up a sizable and well-deserved cult following online (there are seemingly endless unreleased songs and performances on youtube). He’s also worked his way up the ranks of the Philadelphia DIY scene and is now a veritable indie-star after collaborating with Frank Ocean on Blonde.
House of Sugar provokes repeated listening with that simple-but-satisfying combination of chord progressions and lyrics that are easy to sing along to. “Walk Away” opens the album with Giannascoli’s voice pitched up, squeaking out the words “Someday I’m gonna walk away from you” before the rest of the sonic space is filled in with drums, guitar and layers of vocal harmonies. The second track, “Hope,” has an opening melody that sounds suspiciously similar to “Gnaw,” a song from Giannascoli’s first album. “Taking” shows off more of that signature Giannascoli sound with vague, straightforward (yet devastatingly poignant) lyrics and sugary, descending guitars and sampled sounds.
Giannascoli’s songs convey some feeling of nostalgia. There is his voice, a distinct whine with ethereal and gravelly tones. Then there are the lyrics, simple words whittled down to their core and strunge together in a personal way.
Giannascoli is able to blend strange, sometimes off-putting electronics with guitar and voice to form an atmosphere that is unique. He has crafted an album that places each track in the uttermost important progression. The Track “Sugar” serves as an example, beginning with heavy, whining strings and robotic vocals that sparkle their way into a piano lead and subtly drift off back into the void. Immediately after the track ends, a lone guitar strumming emotive chords fades in, beginning “In My Arms”; a track whose furtive lyrics leave you wondering, “Why am I so sad all of a sudden?”
The album’s final song, “Sugarhouse,” is a live version that sees Giannascoli taking his stab at a Bruce Springsteen impression. Its keys and saxophone shoot you into a room that is big, dark and smoky; peopled with all the characters within the (Sandy) Alex G catalog. They kick around with each other, sipping lukewarm beer and recounting days now gone, all while Alex sings them into existence.
(Sandy) Alex G will be coming to Denver’s Marquis Theater on Nov. 6. He has quite the back catalog, with a Bandcamp that is both rewarding and confusing to explore at length. A link to a curated Spotify playlist can be found here.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Cameron Markuson at cameron.markuson@colorado.edu
