Foto-© Giraffe Studios

Wie er auf dem Pressefoto im Bademandel und Pantoffel posiert, wirkt der aus dem Chatsworth-Viertel im San Fernando Valley/Los Angeles stammende Alex Izenberg wie ein nerdiger Kauz – und wahrlich lebt er ein eher zurückgezogenes Leben. Nachdem bei ihm 2012 paranoide Schizophrenie diagnostiziert worden war, wurde die Musik zu einem Rettungsanker oder zu der Linse, die ihm hilft, die Welt neu zu fokussieren und seinem Gefühlschaos einen Sinn zu geben. 2016 erschien sein erstes Album Harlequin, eine charmante Sammlung verschwommener Art-Pop-Hymnen, die Vergleiche mit Chamber-Pop-Größen wie Van Dyke Parks, Harry Nilson und Grizzly Bear nahelegten. Mit der Hilfe einer Handvoll Kollaborateure, darunter Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Jonathan Rado (Foxygen, Whitney, Lemon Twigs), Ari Balouzian (Tobias Jesso Jr) und anderen, erschafft Izenberg Lieder, die leicht zu verehren, aber schwer zu definieren sind. So auch auf seinem neuen Album Caravan Château, das heute erscheint und für das uns der Musiker mit der gefühlvollen Stimme ein Track by Track eingesprochen hat, das wir emsig abgetippt haben!

1. Requiem

I was inspired by Bon Iver and doing something that was vocally driven and by the same time I wanted to do something that was true to me personally and also kind of 70ths, 60ths style. The guitar reminds me on something that Eric Clapton would do.

2. Sister Jade

The second song Sister Jade I was just thinking about, you know, universal feelings of love and gratitude, you know, I would never leave you or take you away from the things you love, just something that I feel deeply about my family and my friends. And it can even be applied for people in relationships, too. I mean like in the pre-chorus I say „Turn me on to a blue-eyed women etc“ but it’s not just that, you know, you can switch it around when the chorus comes.

3. Anne In Strange Furs

It was actually an old song I wrote mixed with a new song and I just kind of pieced it together in the studio and it worked well. The strings at the end of the song were done by Ari Balouzian of Midnight Sister and Gabriels.

4.Disraeli Woman

It was really my response to Neon Indiens Deadbeat Summer, but it really doesn’t sound anything like that, other than the actual tempo being similar. I just wanted to make like an upbeat song while remaining kinda like swarve in a way or something, if I can say that.

5. Saffron Glimpse

It’s a bit more on the poetic site, I think for me. And it reminds me on something that like the Everly Brothers might have done.

6. Dancing Through The Turquoise

It’s kind of just my idea of like walking up in the morning and walking to the piano and just making a song, while still being in the dream state. It’s kind of poetic, but it’s kind of a love song too. I can’t really put my finger on what it is about, but I don’t really need to. I like it, it’s a good one. It’s a combination between a poem and a love song, which I think is really cool.

7. Bouquets Falling In The Rain

It’s my version of like a Burt Bacharach ballad, even that doesn’t sound like him. I feel like the words would be something he might make in the 60s, for like a random 60s singer. I was also inspired by the Pretty Things for that song.

8. December 30th

I was also super inspired by the Pretty Things. It was kind of my response to the Pretty Things song called October 26th, it’s in the same key, it’s in E minor. It’s about a random fling I have with a friend of mine a long time ago, it’s like a sensitive ballad, but it has a sweetness to it, that I liked.

9. Lady

It’s a song that my friend Ari made and I FaceTimed him and he played me the song to me and I said „Wow, that’s amazing, can I sing on it?“ And he said „Yeah“. And so I went to his house and I sang on it and we worked on it for about a week. And that was that.

10. Revolutions Girls

It really is just a jam, it didn’t really lyrically mean anything. It was just kind of a pretend rock-song, but I really like the outro strings, that Ari Balouzian did.

11. Caravan Château 

The last song is a song that I recorded with Jonathan Rado of Foxygen. I didn’t sleep the night before, so I was really tied and like a zombie in the studio. But I think that went into the vocal performance and gave like a bruiting quality to it.