FADER PREMIERE:
Earlier this summer, we posted a track from New York musician Alexis Georgopoulos, whose recent MORE LP takes an unexpected left turn out of experimental synthesizer music into pristine, orchestral psych-pop. Georgopoulos is surprisingly good at this—almost to the point of fooling his listeners into thinking they're listening to something that Eno had a hand in in the '70s—and if there's something kind of anachronistic-sounding about MORE, it might just be the note-perfect precision and specificity that seems to radiate into each colorful horn blast, violin swirl and breathy vocal harmony. In other words, beyond its clear record collector pedigree (one song here is dedicated to Charlemagne Palestine), the album's just radiating all over with human care and warmth, which makes it something I personally look forward to listening to now that the weather is cooling down, in the same way that I look forward to listening to other very melodic and well-crafted albums, like Nico's Chelsea Girl. This one's out September 17th via Smalltown Supersound, but you can pre-order it here, and stream it in full below. Here, Georgopoulos explains how he came around to making a pop record:
"I suppose this felt like a natural progression. After approaching things in a particular way for some time, you wonder what might happen if you approach things from a different angle. The unlikeliness of it became part of the attraction. I realized I could continue making records like The Soft Wave forever—and it might even be rewarding. But it felt like the right kind of challenge to do something I thought I might never do. After years moving away from the song form—the singing, the overly-familiar structures, the sentiment, the predictabilities —I found myself drawn to The Song again. Drawn to the very things I'd rejected. I found value in structures that had seemed at one point so formulaic. And the act of singing simply felt good.In many ways, New York was the inspiration. Not only the physical city itself—the architecture, the monochrome palette, the rhythms, the renewal, the ceaselessness, the organism. But also the history of the city. The way it views itself. The way it constantly changes itself, and yet always refers back to itself. The characters that seem to only be found here. The materialism, the smoke and mirrors. The view of the city through literature and film. Even though New York is constantly changing, it seems to remain resolutely itself.
True, on the surface, this might seem a drastic departure. But, to me, there are some very clear throughways connecting my past instrumental work to this current batch of songs. They may not be as obvious, but hopefully that makes the process more interesting."
Stream: Arp, More