SPIRIT RESEARCH
ALEXALONE - EVERYDAYISHALLOWEEN
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militaryinsustrialcomplex
A.L. WEST - NOTHING AT ALL / RABBITBRUSH 2
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Photo by Alex Montenegro
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Photo by Alex Montenegro
A.L. West is a musical project based in Austin, Texas, led by songwriter Daniel Bryson. They meld thoughtful, pensive songwriting with guitar-forward arrangements inspired by a number of pop and indie rock acts of the late 90's and early 2000's. Bryson conceived of the project in late 2019 as a way to practice home recording and simplify their songwriting process. During 2020, he spent the unemployed haze of the early pandemic fleshing out the writing and demoing of songs that had been kicking around for a while as voice memos on his phone or cast-off riffs with a line or two of lyrics for weeks, months, or years. A few of these songs ended up as low-key singles (2020's Earth and Earth 2 and 2021's The Future and Under the Table), but a perfectionist tendency kept a number of them in demo format for a time. As the isolating months of the early pandemic began to wane, he enlisted the help of Connor Schwanke (Glaze, Spirit Ghost) to engineer and mix a collection of songs that became The Store. Shortly thereafter he formed a live group that now consists of guitarist Trent Bownds, drummer Dylan Moore, and bassist Benton Kaufman. Bryson continues to write the songs, but, while initially conceived of as a solo endeavor, the project now looks and feels a bit more like a band, playing shows in Austin and collaboratively editing songs in practice with current and past members of the live group beginning to crop up on recordings of songs from The Store and beyond.
proun is an austin texas trio composed of singer/guitarist jamie weed, bassist dante zatto, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist alex peterson. while initially exploring a louder, more guitar-forward sound on the 2023 debut ep form, the band is not tied to any particular sound or identity. with the release of 2024’s ep podium proun leaps into a more introspective, spacious, and dense variety of songs outlining a love for nylon strings, forward lyricism, rhythmic diversity, and electronic textures. the band embarked on their first tour alongside alexalone in support of podium bringing proun to venues across the country. In addition to a warm response on tour, the austin chronicle named podium #5 on their list of “best austin music albums of 2024.”
New Strangers is a 3 piece, post punk band from Austin, Texas featuring Kyle Carpenter (vocals, guitar), Benton Kaufman (bass) and Nick Stout (drums). Heavily influenced by the 80's and 90's indie sound, New Strangers plays a mix of both short and hook-filled post punk bangers, and more drawn-out and improvisational songs. Since the members of the group had been playing with each other in various forms over the last decade (Unknown Relatives, Drags, LATE), and happened to all live under one roof, things came together pretty quickly in the summer of 2019. After a little less than a year together, the pandemic slowed the writing process down for a while, but in the fall of 2022, the band was finally ready to record its first full-length album. Carpenter’s guitar playing hits the listener with a blistering wall of melodicism and grit. Most lyrical themes tend to circle around a very intense sense of anxiety and fear. Drummer Nick Stout and bassist Benton Kaufman provide a propulsive but steady foundation that keeps the whole train from devolving into echoey chaos. With an energetic live show and a debut album coming out this summer, New Strangers are just getting started.
A.L. WEST - THE STORE
![]()
Photo by Alex Montenegro
![]()
Photo by Alex Montenegro
A.L. West is a musical project based in Austin, Texas, led by songwriter Daniel Bryson. They meld thoughtful, pensive songwriting with guitar-forward arrangements inspired by a number of pop and indie rock acts of the late 90's and early 2000's. Bryson conceived of the project in late 2019 as a way to practice home recording and simplify their songwriting process. During 2020, he spent the unemployed haze of the early pandemic fleshing out the writing and demoing of songs that had been kicking around for a while as voice memos on his phone or cast-off riffs with a line or two of lyrics for weeks, months, or years. A few of these songs ended up as low-key singles (2020's Earth and Earth 2 and 2021's The Future and Under the Table), but a perfectionist tendency kept a number of them in demo format for a time. As the isolating months of the early pandemic began to wane, he enlisted the help of Connor Schwanke (Glaze, Spirit Ghost) to engineer and mix a collection of songs that became The Store. Shortly thereafter he formed a live group that now consists of guitarist Trent Bownds, drummer Dylan Moore, and bassist Benton Kaufman. Bryson continues to write the songs, but, while initially conceived of as a solo endeavor, the project now looks and feels a bit more like a band, playing shows in Austin and collaboratively editing songs in practice with current and past members of the live group beginning to crop up on recordings of songs from The Store and beyond.
In almost every respect, the alexalone that made their poignant Polyvinyl debut, 2021’s ALEXALONEWORLD, is an altogether different band than the one that made their staggering follow-up, the new ALEXALONE TECHNICAL RESEARCH. During that deep pandemic daze, Alex Peterson recorded much of that first record themselves, accreting bass and guitar takes in homespun overdub sessions and collecting parts from friends. Those eight songs shaped a discursive ’90s journey, with Peterson moving among touchstones like Yo La Tengo, Hum, and Low, clutching those influences tightly as if to remain afloat amid a high tide of despair.
But by the time Peterson began writing TECHNICAL RESEARCH, alexalone seemed to be a stable quintet, a two- and sometimes three-guitar powerhouse with a clearer—and, frankly, more compelling—vision. Surrounded now by the collaborators who had contributed to that debut, Peterson let darkness and heaviness flood the tunes, the guitar tessellations and dynamo drums suddenly invoking Slint, Sonic Youth, and Boris in epics that may last for 13 minutes. They offset that formidable sound, though, not only with a melodic sweetness but also with a lyrical tenderness, Peterson trying to deal with this damaging world rather than simply succumb to it. Imagine looking skyward on a cloudy night and spotting just enough stars to know they’re still there: That is ALEXALONE TECHNICAL RESEARCH, a five-track album that trumpets the arrival of a mighty but vulnerable new rock band.
But by the time Peterson began writing TECHNICAL RESEARCH, alexalone seemed to be a stable quintet, a two- and sometimes three-guitar powerhouse with a clearer—and, frankly, more compelling—vision. Surrounded now by the collaborators who had contributed to that debut, Peterson let darkness and heaviness flood the tunes, the guitar tessellations and dynamo drums suddenly invoking Slint, Sonic Youth, and Boris in epics that may last for 13 minutes. They offset that formidable sound, though, not only with a melodic sweetness but also with a lyrical tenderness, Peterson trying to deal with this damaging world rather than simply succumb to it. Imagine looking skyward on a cloudy night and spotting just enough stars to know they’re still there: That is ALEXALONE TECHNICAL RESEARCH, a five-track album that trumpets the arrival of a mighty but vulnerable new rock band.