The Hotel Alexis
The Shining Example is Lying on the Floor
Broken Sparrow
Is slow/sad-core a sinking ship? Both Low and Idaho, two decade-long lynchpins of the genre, ditched their previous somberness for poppier pastures. This move would seem to indicate that they at least have exhausted their vocabulary for it. Thankfully, Sidney Alexis and his rotating band of cohorts aren’t giving up the ghost. Working under the radar with a finely wrought simplicity, the group harkens back to the grand and quiet albums of the mid-‘90s from Mazzy Star and Mojave 3. Shining Example… nestles warmly within a bed of lazy pedal steel, gentle finger-picking and a whispery vocal closeness. It’s as familiar and inviting as a campfire on a late summer night or a long walk on an early autumn morning. Alexis keeps his sound flirting with modernity with his inclusion of today’s amateur orchestral instruments: vibraphone, melodica, synths and various other bric-a-brac. It expands the sweeping dustbowl sounds of his forerunners, without straying into the frightening size of Sufjan Stevens. It would be easy to list essential tracks on here, but this album is one big highlight. Buy it and bask in it.
The Hotel Alexis: http://www.hotelalexis.com
