Alex G, Porches

Not long after he finished recording Beach Music, his seventh full-length and Domino debut, Alex Giannascoli found himself in unfamiliar territory. "I took the record to a studio," he says, "to get it mixed and mastered by some pros. But I was really nervous—usually, I'd just do everything myself and then put it out myself. I have this really precise vision and the best understanding of what I want to do." Over the course of six self-recorded and mostly self-released LPs, that vision has come to bear in frequently breathtaking, innately melodic forms. As Alex G, the Philadelphian singer-songwriter has built and feverishly shared a body of work unassuming in its presentation but astounding in its depth, a stream of recordings so rich and expansive that settling on a favorite song is nearly impossible: The moment you finally choose one, you discover another you hadn't heard yet. Beach Music was written and recorded in Giannascoli's apartment, between the Fall of 2014 and the Spring of 2015, during breaks from touring with the likes of Elvis Depressedly, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and Gardens & Villa. While its predecessors often came in uninterrupted bursts—from his head to his Bandcamp page in a matter of hours and days—Beach Music was shaped in part by Giannascoli adapting to life as a touring musician. Songs were written within months of one another rather than all at once, with influences ranging from noise music to piano-based laments to Southern rock to the rhythmic focus of techno—whatever he happened to be most interested in at the time. "Every song is coming from a different place," he says. "It branches off in all these directions, but it has its own sound. It's not something I do intentionally, but I'm the common thread." The result is Giannascoli's most cohesive and beautiful work to date, as heard in the iridescent guitars of "Bug," the starlit whispers of "Mud," and the singularly strange harmonics of "Brite Boy." Some feature parts of songs that he began writing as a kid; all are haunting additions to a songbook whose rewards continue to evolve and multiply with every listen. "I wanted this album to sound really warm and unpretentious and unfiltered," he says. "I wanted to make music that was completely honest, music that was coming really naturally to me. I don't know what or who I am if I'm not writing songs."


When Aaron Maine looks back on his early work as Porches, he's often struck by how sad and angry it can feel. "That music turned out a lot more pessimistic than I intended it to be," he says. "But when I took a sad moment and turned it into a song, it was a cathartic, positive, and clean process. For me, those moments were victories. Feeling better," he adds, "was making a song."

As it turns out, Maine is very good at making songs. Over the last few years, the 27-year-old singer and songwriter has released a wealth of material on a number of influential labels, including singles on Terrible (2014's Prism), Birdtapes (2013's Townie Blunt Guts) and Seagreen (2014's Leather), as well as a beautiful yet crushing full-length on Exploding in Sound (2013's Slow Dance In The Cosmos). And in the process he's become a magnetic live presence while playing out in New York, gaining the notice of discerning listeners and labels alike. February 2016 marks the much-anticipated release of Pool, his debut full-length for Domino and a major step forward for him—as an evolving singer/songwriter, and as a nascent producer. Written and recorded almost entirely in the Manhattan apartment he shares with his partner and frequent collaborator, Greta Kline a.k.a Frankie Cosmos, Pool is an elegantly drawn set of gorgeous, synth-driven pop songs that were influenced, in part, by settling in the city as an artist and a person. "I'm feeling like I'm in a more permanent situation than I've been in before," he says. "There is something special about recording at home. It's why it sounds the way it does. Being able to obsess over it on your own time and being in your own little cube knowing you're surrounded by the city, being able to go so deep into it and to spend hours building it, loving it: all of that allowed me to reflect and focus on things a little closer."

The album was recorded twice - the first time a crash-course in learning Logic and navigating his first synthesizers and drum machines, the second time starting from scratch with a better hold on the recording process - and eventually mixed by Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Tobias Jesso Jr.) in his Los Angeles studio. Sometime in 2014, Maine, a long-devoted Neil Young fan, began listening to house and electronic music and contemporary pop music more closely and frequently than he ever had before. What followed is a hypnotic and expansive re-articulation of the melancholy we've come to expect, from the pristine harmonies of "Hour" to the undulating R&B of "Underwater" to the Auto-tuned majesty of the title track. "I feel like the lyrics are like mood boards or collages of my experience in New York," he says. "Rather than focusing on a particular incident or story like I have in the past, I wanted to be more abstract, in order to paint a very specific mood: ideas of lightness and darkness, water, air, movement, acceptance and security." The result is a sophisticated and fully immersive listening experience, with Maine's voice at its center. "I'm getting a little older and a little more in touch with my emotions," he adds. "I just wanted to make this album more positive and to make sure that my message was coming across clearly this time. I never wanted my music to bum people out. I feel like I naturally gravitate towards the more melancholic experiences in life, but this time around I tried to dissect those moments and somehow extract what was so beautiful about them to me. With this record, I want people to feel something different, something subtler. I want people to feel dark, beautiful and strong when they hear this new record. I want people to put it on at a party and go wild, to put it on just walking or driving around. I want them to fall in love to this record."