It’s said the bedroom is where the magic happens.
It’s a refuge that is at once intimate yet isolated… A place of otherness… A heterotopia. Door closed, away from judgment, daydreaming, self-reflection and imagination are free to flourish, blurring the borders between headspace and meatspace.
[sidebar title=”” align=”right” background=”on” border=”all” shadow=”on”]Album: “Strangest Things”
Artist: William Alexander
Label: Yellow K Records
Release Date: November 6, 2015
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
William Alexander—who formerly went by the stage name The Meanest Boys—has proven that the bedroom is not just a place for baby-making, but also music making.
It is the point of transmission for Alexander’s forthcoming album “Strangest Things.”
In an interview with Bandcamp Alexander said: “There is a childlike beauty to recording in my bedroom. It’s my corner of the world, and I can carve out whatever I want with no intimidation. The process is so intimate; it’s just me. Real studios terrify me.”
The lo-fi aesthetic is apparent from the opening track “Lost In the Fire,” a hazy nostalgic tune peppered with guitar staccatos that sound just off-pitch, as if you were playing an old record.
The title track “Strangest Things” is punctuated throughout by percussive chop guitar chords. Its breezy and cheery demeanor is hoisted up by a beefy head bob-inducing bass line.
“Come Find Me” peddles along on a slack and slow trip-hop beat while Alexander’s ghosting melody hovers somewhere above the track. Pretty minimalistic, the psychedelic filigrees, piano loops and synth-y strings are reminiscent of a stripped down Tame Impala.
Indeed, a through line can be drawn between Alexander’s vocal phrasing and that of Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. At other moments there are tinges of the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson.
Alexander, who hails from Long Beach, has cited influences as disparate as Motown and N.W.A., all of which can be heard in the catchy baselines and heavy-duty hip-hop drum loops that inhabit his soundscape.
The album’s most ho-hum track is “Inside Shakes.” Mostly flat line, it never seems to leave the gate and when it ends you don’t linger on it’s meaning and instantly enter the world of “Big Mistakes” which sounds like a combo of The Black Keys and The Black Angels; its big rhythm drums meets woozy psychedelia.
For such an expansive feeling and atmospheric album, the tracks are relatively short, with only one breaking past the 4-minute mark.
Alexander’s lyrics tend to be on the cryptic side, leaving interpretation up to the moods conjured by the swirls of reverb and looping sounds that make up the album. It’s this quality that makes “Strangest Things” feel personal even though we are listening to the artist’s private bedroom orchestrations.