"you've gotta a crown and you wear it upside down..."
I have these beautiful guitar melodies implanted in my brain. The leapt inside me from Los Angeles singer-songwriter / guitarist Alex Gardner's dreamboat of a track "Upside Down Crown" (accompanied with an artful Official Video). The song (for me) has a nostalgic sense about it and a broad one, like it might of emanated from diverse inspirations, like maybe late 70's proto punk and late 60's bohemian folk and 90's jangle pop blended like salt water taffy and stretched and stretched into another iteration of all three. Toss on Alex's tenderly drawn lyrics with embraced harmonies and you have a wonderful recipe for a song about heartbreak about loss and maybe acceptance as hard as that is.
There is a heaviness to the sound, a density of purpose as the bass is pushing constantly against shuffling be-bopping drums, super cool sounding guitars, piano and maybe more. I am in love with the harmonies, the vocal countenance that feel sort of rough and ready, this is to say that there is a reticence in the performance and on purpose or not, they lend a sort of aloof quality that makes this all even more endearing.
Yeah, just yeah.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://www.instagram.com/alex.gardner.11/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4JXgScTTvPY2kJOsExoH3G
https://alexgardner.bandcamp.com/album/strange-designs
Alex Gardner is a songwriter and guitarist living in Los Angeles. Starting in 2007, he has self-released a string of albums, and been involved in music scenes in Seattle and Los Angeles. His songs are drawn from divergent sources, taking inspiration from fairy tales, experimental poetry, the Anthology of American folk music, rockabilly and bluegrass. Though previous releases have orbited closer to the outsider folk of Josephine Foster and Michael Hurley, Gardner pays tribute to distorted guitar amps and echoey, lo-fi indie music on his latest album, titled Highly Attainable Dreams. Entirely self-recorded in living rooms in both Los Angeles and Seattle, the album brings together musicians active in both scenes, and was recorded collaboratively over several months, reuniting old friends happy to be in a room playing and working together as the pandemic waned. Digging through American paradigms both old and modern, the album weaves together two genres (old weird American folk music and 90s indie rock) not so much to synthesize them, as in an attempt to scrape away at or uncover some strange but familiar common denominator. Highly Attainable Dreams features Lauren Slusser on piano and vocals; Lauren also wrote and directed the music video for "Upside Down Crown." It also features Dan Komin (Pop Molecules) on bass, and Jason Wyman (TV Girl) on drums. It features contributions by Craig Peters (Craig Salt Peters), Jade Tcimpidis (129,600), and Zach Burba (iji).
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/alex.gardner.11/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4JXgScTTvPY2kJOsExoH3G
https://alexgardner.bandcamp.com/album/strange-designs
Alex Gardner is a songwriter and guitarist living in Los Angeles. Starting in 2007, he has self-released a string of albums, and been involved in music scenes in Seattle and Los Angeles. His songs are drawn from divergent sources, taking inspiration from fairy tales, experimental poetry, the Anthology of American folk music, rockabilly and bluegrass. Though previous releases have orbited closer to the outsider folk of Josephine Foster and Michael Hurley, Gardner pays tribute to distorted guitar amps and echoey, lo-fi indie music on his latest album, titled Highly Attainable Dreams. Entirely self-recorded in living rooms in both Los Angeles and Seattle, the album brings together musicians active in both scenes, and was recorded collaboratively over several months, reuniting old friends happy to be in a room playing and working together as the pandemic waned. Digging through American paradigms both old and modern, the album weaves together two genres (old weird American folk music and 90s indie rock) not so much to synthesize them, as in an attempt to scrape away at or uncover some strange but familiar common denominator. Highly Attainable Dreams features Lauren Slusser on piano and vocals; Lauren also wrote and directed the music video for "Upside Down Crown." It also features Dan Komin (Pop Molecules) on bass, and Jason Wyman (TV Girl) on drums. It features contributions by Craig Peters (Craig Salt Peters), Jade Tcimpidis (129,600), and Zach Burba (iji).
Alex Gardner, "Upside Down Crown", singer songwriter, guitarist, indie rock, folk pop, dreamy, blended genres, love and hurt, Los Angeles, Seattle,
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