Perhaps the most fascinating thing about (Sandy) Alex G is how he manages to release an album of consistently original, absorbing material every couple of years. Since his first self-released record in 2010 (‘Race’), the 26-year-old Philadelphia artist has gone on to release a further eight albums. His latest – the wildly creative and simultaneously cohesive ‘House of Sugar’ – is his third for Domino. The British indie label has exposed the songwriter’s intimate bedroom recordings to an audience beyond a cult following. And ‘House of Sugar’ is the record to unite fans old and new.
Alex Giannascoli has often tampered with welding odd and accessible ideas together, but he hasn’t previously succeeded quite this well. His last record, 2017’s ‘Rocket’, offered ample space for experiment (see the doomy punk-meets-trip-hop of ‘Brick’) but also heralded a variation on the lo-fi indie guitar rock of his earlier albums. Banjo trills, violins and country-laced acoustic tales bookended ‘Rocket’, with the off-kilter cuts constrained to the middle. On ‘House of Sugar’, Giannascoli borrows from that structural imprint but this time comes armed with melodies you swear you’ve known your whole life.
Bluesy shuffle-pop number ‘Gretel’ is an instant highlight. In Giannascoli’s retelling of the famous Brothers Grimm tale Hansel and Gretel, he envisages the song’s titular character leaving her brother to perish in the witch’s ‘House of Sugar’. It’s one of the many times Giannascoli plays narrator or introduces new ones (there are tales of addicts and conmen here).
