Alex Somers is best known as one half of Jónsi & Alex/Riceboy Sleeps, and he's also done a handful of other collaborations (with Julianna Barwick, Damien Rice, and more) and film scoring (the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana, Black Mirror, the How To Train Your Dragon trilogy, etc), and now he's gearing up for not one but two solo albums, Siblings (pre-order) and Siblings 2 (pre-order), both due March 19 via Krunk.
The songs on these albums were in the making for several years, as Alex said via press release. "I’ve carried this music for a long time - so long that it’s become two albums. I wrote most of it between 2014 and 2016, but I abandoned it at different stages, thinking nobody else would want to hear it....I don’t know any artist who doesn’t struggle with creativity. But friends who heard it, especially Jónsi, encouraged me to finish it."
During the records' gestation, Alex continued that he gathered inspiration (and sampled from) from many different places such as horror films and other projects he'd worked on himself, including the composition he crafted for a documentary called Dawson City: Frozen in Time (2016). Regarding that specific composition's effect on the albums, Alex said, "It’s such a poetic story and it’s so in sync with how I hear music, and my obsession with found objects. The footage is so weathered and fucked up and beautiful, and it was wonderful to match those images with sound. I’d dub sound onto machines, and through different mediums, play it back and re-record it, gathering imperfections. As I wrote the soundtrack, I’d splinter off in different directions, adding more stuff, and these turned into Siblings tracks."
Today, Alex has released a single off of each LP, "Deathbed" off Siblings and "Sooner" off Siblings 2. Both instrumental tracks display Alex's interesting sonic technique in that they are atmospheric and otherworldly, with "Sooner" being a light, airy, and whimsical number, and "Deathbed" chiming in with an almost melancholic tone. You can listen to both singles and view each album's tracklisting below.
"I’m really excited about making music that’s more relevant to where I am now," Alex concludes. "But first, I’m really excited to finally let Siblings go."
SIBLINGS TRACKLISTING
1. Weeping Willow 2. Oh Willow I Die 3. Deathbed 4. Between Us 5. Tell Me (for Joe Meek) 6. Dim 7. Oh No 8. Kimblings 9. Dreaming Boys 10. Avalanche 11. One 12. Whirlpool 13. Looking After
SIBLINGS 2 TRACKLISTING 1. Following After 2. Blown 3. Woven 4. Locket 5. Patterning 6. Never Ending 7. Window Way 8. Flutter 9. Kimblings 2 10. Hiddenness 11. Sooner 12. Oella 13. Atlas
