Emby Alexander

Emby Alexander

The scorching sun over Phoenix, Arizona, naturally leads to some dizzying psychedelic intensity, but it leaves its share of syrupy shadow as well. The city sits close enough to the glitz of Los Angeles to instead encourage the weirdos. For nearly a decade, Emby Alexander have sharpened their teeth in that rebellious scene, carving their own path through the desert. On Emby Alexander’s latest, SOARS ERA, the experimental psych pop band powerfully express that idiosyncratic outsiderdom in a way that simultaneously welcomes listeners into the fold.

A native Phoenician, frontman Michael Alexander grew up in punk and garage bands, and utilizes that scrappy DIY mentality in music that stretches into ethereal majesty. The compositions of SOARS ERA similarly blend seeming opposites in their recording, utilizing taut technological instrumentation and loose human improvisation in equal doses. Drawing from the new wave and no wave traditions of bands like Joy Division, Talking Heads, and Suicide, Alexander and bandmates Kyle Grabski, Austin Harshman, and Jeremy Lentz then explode the results like fireworks in the night sky.

Lead single “Dye It Gold” exemplifies that experimental ethos both in its composition and in its recording process. Alexander first wrote the song at a park picnic table under the big sky while on tour somewhere between Idaho and Montana, and sanded off the rough edges while on a friend’s roof in San Francisco--and the track appropriately reaches for the skies with its burnished guitar corkscrews and tightly knotted harmonies. When it came time to record, the band’s Spine Island studio provided the ramshackle immediacy needed to capture that magic. “We ran out of mic stands and taped the room mic to a TV,” Alexander recalls. The band jammed the space full of musical instruments, art, and film projectors so that they’d be ready to capture new ideas as quickly as possible.

That willingness to reach ever further creatively is an essential element of the Emby Alexander process. “I think of it as leaving the mainland to swim toward an island that I’ve only dreamt about,” Alexander explains. On albums like 2019’s Cactus Candy, Emby Alexander have developed their own genre that embodies that exploratory attitude: tallwave. Combining relatively simple fundamental components into a large, complex recording, the band’s tallwave tunes reach a stunning apex subtly.

Early single “You Can Do It” is a prime example on the band’s latest, building a Van Dykes Parks orchestral pop vibe using everything from a steely electric guitar to a half-filled bathtub used for percussion. “I was afraid I was going to slip in and electrocute myself, but everything went smoothly,” Alexander says. Animal Collective and Born Ruffians collaborator Rusty Santos mixed the track, and the golden enthusiasm permeating every layer of the track makes it a festival-ready positivity anthem. Parks’ orchestral compositions aren’t the only apt comparison point. Alexander’s twisty yet pointed lyrics live cleverly in the long line of rock’s witty wordsmiths. An avid learner keen to study etymology and on the hunt for an expanded vocabulary, Alexander isn’t afraid to shy away from an unexpected turn of phrase. “My aim is efficiency and efficacy, using ‘normal’ words in a unique way,” he explains. Album highlight “Protect Your Rings” dips and dodges expectations, riding a Smiths-y angularity through smoke rings of stream-of-consciousness lyricism. “There are a million layers to it, which makes sense since the main theme relates to maintaining a balance between being proud and being humble,” Alexander explains.As the lead of the writing and recording sessions, Alexander sees himself sort of like a film director. In addition to his bandmates’ prodigious creative talents, the album brings in several guests, including Lane Lines’ Mandi Kimes, songwriter Dane Jarvie, and Joel Marquard. “Sometimes I have to have all the answers and sometimes I can let an ‘actor’ improvise,” Alexander says. “These brilliant musicians have the special ability to take my ideas and run with them. They’re musical psychics. They can communicate the unspoken ideas." One perfect example of that alchemical closeness come in Marquard’s lithe harmonies on “The Morality of Accuracy in Photojournalism”, a slight touch that adds an immense depth.

Even while constantly seeking out new textures, techniques, and feelings, SOARS ERA epitomizes the Emby Alexander vibe. Consummate explorers and overachievers, the four-piece have swum further than their already wild farthest reaches and established a new spiritual psychedelic home.