Alex G, composer of cult characters, upgrades his sound

Over the last few years, Alex GianascoliHis life was unfolding in a way that made it look like he might record a new album with a very capital M Mature. The pandemic has kept the 29-year-old musician, who goes by the name Alex G, in one place for the longest time in years. He returned to running and bought a house in Philadelphia. He read a lot and found himself thinking about religion. And, perhaps most importantly, he put aside his reputation as a self-taught home production genius and began recording in a professional studio for the first time.

So it is telling that the record score, God save the animals builds on that mood of introspection and growth and still equals his most exciting and playful record to date. On a July morning in the atrium of the Brooklyn Ace Hotel, Gianascoli pondered how his ninth album, out this week, had become such a commotion. “I always try to have fun while making music,” he said. “Because that’s my only measure of its quality.”

An affable curmudgeon, slight of build, dressed in putty-colored clothing and drinking water from a can, Gianascoli told me he often struggles to describe his creative process. “I have a process where I go through writing and trying to think about these things. But it’s something that happens subconsciously for the most part,” he said. “And then I try to put it into words and finally… I almost lie when I try.

Whatever the truth, it worked. Over the past decade, his prolific output of unusually catchy songs has made him a cult hero with Japanese Breakfast’s boosters Michelle Zauner and Frank Ocean, who invited Gianascoli to play on his 2016 album Russian. His fanbase, which is very young, has given him a small hit on TikTok, and die-hards gather on a highly active Reddit page – 12,000 members – where they analyze lyrics and share playlists. (They appear to have been the original source of a photo showing a disheveled Giannascoli covered in spilled beer that went viral in 2019 after conservatives mistook it for a photo of Beto O’Rourke.) In July, he made his late-night debut on the show tonight and when he returns to New York for his fall tour, it will be for two nights of sold-out shows at Brooklyn Steel.

In a way, Gianascoli embodies the humor and sophistication of his music, but also acknowledges that the phenomenon exists somewhat outside of him as a person. He mostly stays off social media except to promote music, and describes his main pastimes as watching TV and cooking for his partner and music collaborator, Molly Germer. The onset of the pandemic in 2020 delayed a long-awaited world tour for his latest album, but otherwise he said his life hasn’t really changed much in quarantine. Eventually, though, he started wanting to spend some time away from home, so he made a routine of going to a local recording studio.

“If I was trying to write one day and I couldn’t come up with anything, I’d hit up my friend who was working in the studio and say, ‘Can I come in and just mess around?'” Gianascoli recalls. “And I was just messing around a lot and one thing led to another and I was like, Oh, I actually think I can do this.”

He eventually brought in an associate Jake Portrait, producer and member of the indie band Unknown Mortal Orchestra to help turn his studio foray into a record. In an interview last month, Portrait explained that Giannascoli’s talent as a songwriter made their collaboration much easier. “It’s so cool that he has such an imaginative idea of ​​what records should sound like and the ability to just write some sick songs and some really great lyrics,” Portrait said. “When the essence of the song is this good, you can do it a million different ways without doing the song a disservice.”

He added that the recording in the studio for God save the animals it was an opportunity for them to expand on some of the things he already enjoyed working with Gianascoli. “Alex loves records and he comes up with these references, like a song or some specific drum sound,” Portrait said. “Even when he was recording with a $99 microphone, he was always listening.” The goal of this album was to make him a little less isolated and more referential, while drawing on the skills of studio engineers and musicians he knew.

Ultimately, this meant bringing in some of the youthful energy from Alex G’s live performances. The rest of Giannascoli’s live band joined in on some of the recording sessions, and the final track on the album, “Forgive”, was recorded live by trip to the Clubhouse Recording Studio in Rhinebeck, New York.