older news from alex.
October 21, 2012: ‘Toy trains for birds’ is a simple bit of fun that ended up being on the MUTEK.02 compilation: unpretentious, to the point, and candy-coated. We couldn’t resist revisiting it to see how we might write the song nowadays. A few more trains, a few more birds, and hey... there it is. (PS: we’ve also started posting our remixes on Soundcloud, so feel free to share the tracks, embed them on your own pages and blogs, comment on the tracks, and so on.)
Listen for the difference...
Listen to the remix:
September 22, 2012: ‘Television, my lazy brother’ takes us back to a good place: we were improvising lots, playing around with song structure and repetition, playing our first live shows, and writing the album that would eventually become ‘the canadian spelling program.’ As they say in the renovation business, this song has “good bones,” so we decided to revisit it as the next remix. ‘Telenet, my crazy lover’ is the result of four furious days of playing around, ending on the fall equinox. Listen to this tribute to our September birthdays and the dial-up internet we are currently tolerating in the beautiful countryside.
Listen for the difference...
Listen to the remix:
August 21, 2012: ‘Jane’ almost made it onto ‘the canadian spelling program.’ Because it ended up an outtake, we eagerly offered it up as a part of special Piehead Records release, ‘Save your fork, there’s pie!’ Later, we released it online for all of you to hear. Now we’ve spruced it up, changed some things that were bothering us, and given it a makeover. Hey Jane, you knew.
Listen for the difference...
Listen to the remix:
August 4, 2012: Just a quick note to let you know we're playing OTHERfolk in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada on August 16th. It's a multi-venue event, and you can get a pass for the main event and all the other venues here. Some of the events are free (including ours). You can find us at the Farmer's Market at 6:30 PM. Have a look at the schedule and map to all the events here.
July 21, 2012: This track on ‘the canadian spelling program’ has always had a special place in our hearts. Composed on the fly as an experiment while testing out some new synths, ‘Fresh Spice’ became our opening number at live shows for around one year. Here it has taken on new life, with fresher spices, and maybe even some lightly toasted seeds.
Listen to the remix:
June 23, 2012: This next remix is basically a new song. Written back before hellothisisalex knew that it was hellothisisalex, the song was abandoned still unfinished. Unnamed, unresolved, and unreleased, it languished in our files. When we unearthed it recently, we decided to finally finish it. In the end, trying to pick up a conversation from a decade ago is more difficult than we anticipated. We pared the song down to its absolute basics, arranged it with mostly new music, and finished it with sounds from our time in Sweden in 2008. Garnished with sounds from our cottage on the island of Gotland, we have named it for two of the most ubiquitous things we encountered while there: ‘Tack! (Brucebo fika)’. Tack is Swedish for thanks, and fika is Swedish back-slang for a coffee break with food and snacks. We had fika whenever someone would have it with us, and we said tack an awful lot as a result.
Listen to the new song:
May 25, 2012: Back when we released the EP ‘homelife’, we thought that taking the bus was occasionally a theological experience. While time has not diminished our fondness for the song or the memory, we’ve decided to swap that gnostic bus with ‘Big Blue’, the 1978 Dodge pickup down the road at the Six Nations blockade in Dundalk, Ontario, Canada.
Listen for the difference...
Listen to the remix:
April 21, 2012: Remix no. 2: ‘Spider’s Theme,’ also from ‘The Acorn Children.’ Our first songs had us mucking about in swampy waters, experimenting and trying to figure out who we were. Ten years later, the identity crisis is still in full swing. Who was Spider? And why did he need a theme? Was he a spider? Some things will never be known...
Listen to the remix:
March 21, 2012: It turns out Alex can’t count. Apparently we started on February 21, 2001. So the ten-year anniversary passed unnoticed last year. We’re going to celebrate it anyway. Happy 10+1!
Let the anniversary year continue... bring on the remixes! The track where it all began was called Secondary Evidence, and it was part of The Acorn Children. It was composed partly as a nod to the Wendy Carlos soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange. We revisited Secondary Evidence to start off our series of remixes. Listen to the new version, listen to the original, and see why hellothisisalex is just as scary-cute after a decade online.
Listen to the remix:
February 27, 2012:
If you missed the show at Lupercalia, we've posted a video with some clips from the show. Look below, and enjoy!
February 21, 2012:
Today is the day. hellothisisalex.com went live, and scary-cute artwork began making small children smile and cry.
The Lupercalia show was a blast, and we’re ten again. Feel free to crank our tunes and freak out. After that, turn off the electronics and go outside for some fresh air. You’ll thank us.
January 21, 2012: We’ve got the Lupercalia details! The show is part of the 2-day festival in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, and we’re playing Saturday, Feb. 18th at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, 840 1st Ave. West. We’re onstage at 8 PM, but the show opens at 5 PM. We’re playing with As Is (experimental music a la Michael Snow), Learning (electronics and processed guitar duo from Windsor), and Nick Storring (composer/cellist/experimentalist). Purchase your festival tickets online here.
January 10, 2012: It’s hard to believe, but our 10-year anniversary is coming up on February 21st. What are we doing to celebrate? Well, for starters, we're kicking off a full year of festivities with a live show of 100% brand new songs at the Lupercalia Festival in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada on February 18. We’ll be playing with As Is, Learning, and Nick Storring. Details will be posted soon with time and venue, but you can already purchase tickets to the festival at the Lupercalia site.
After that, we’re going to be posting one new remix (by us) of an older track each month starting in March. The remixes/revisitations will span our back catalogue, from early to recent, outtake to album track.
February 10, 2010:
hellothisisalex presents our second video blog, with Mark leading you around our (very small) studio. He shows off some of the gear currently being used to write our new album. Check out the video blog embedded below or at YouTube:
October 29, 2009: Another new review of 'the accidentals', this time from Textura. Read it on the reviews page. Also: Textura has posted a track from the new album for you to download. It's Blackpoll Party at Lobster Cove Head. Get it from their downloads page.
October 25, 2009: A new review of 'the accidentals' by St. John's, Newfoundland & Labrador's The Scope has been added to the reviews page. Enjoy.
September 30, 2009:
hellothisisalex presents our first video blog, introducing our new video for Blackpoll Party at Lobster Cove Head from The Accidentals. Check out the video blog embedded below, and check out the new music video on our videos page or at YouTube:
September 27, 2009: We've added Blackpoll Party at Lobster Cove Head from The Accidentals to our Listen to Alex page. Enjoy!
September 23, 2009: Not too long ago, hellothisisalex were interviewed by Gary Flanagan at Nightwaves. The interview is here, and you can check out Gary's music here.
September 14, 2009: Here it is... The Accidentals! Check out two of the tracks on our MySpace page and check out your digital purchasing options (that's right, The Accidentals is a digital-only release).
May 25, 2009: Welcome to the new website. We hope you like it! We're happy to finally have dealt with this 800-pound frigatebird, dragging it kicking and screaming into 2009. Of course, if you notice a problem, let us know here.
April 24, 2009: Here's a sneak peek of the cover for our upcoming album (titled The Accidentals):
ALSO: We're on Twitter. You can follow us there, or, if you'd prefer your life to remain Twitter-free, you can see our updates right here by checking out the updates at the top of this News page.
The tracklisting is still in the works, but will likely have 10 in total. There will be more info coming soon!
November 15, 2007: Well, Folks, we sincerely apologize for the silence. As it turns out, there has been much invisible activity around the recording of the new album lately. As it currently stands, there are five completely finished tracks, with two still in the recording phase. Beyond that, there are at least two more unrecorded tracks that we're interested in working on. That's a grand total of nine tracks that are most certainly going to make the cut. There were also more, but we don't feel as strongly about them.
Here's a peek at the names for a few of the tracks: Birdtalk, Across the Atlantic on the back of a beetle, and In her head it's a symphony, in her hands, a guitar. As for the album name, we're not 100% certain. The working title is still 'The Other Coast', but we're not very keen on it. Time will tell. We're aiming to finish the recording process by the end of the year. Making time for mixing, etc., our goal is to release it early in 2008. Considering that one of the tracks has roots in 2005, we're going to be very relieved to work on completely new (to us, at least) material.