Hô, Hô, Hô!
We’ve reached that time of the year when every day seems to be straight out of a children’s story: Christmas.
The streets lit up, full of colour and hope, people smiling, eager to get the best present possible, family gatherings, with that little piece of humanity we all need: a hug. And it is with that small gesture that we comfort our Grandparents, Parents, Brothers, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins and Cousins. We smile a lot, and we gesture a lot with the desire of always wanting to be near those people who are also part of us.
Today we fly from Lisbon to Utah, and it is with this premise of ambient sounds that we will simmer in new sensations. Meet Alex Green and his debut album.
CURVATURE OF THE EARTH
Alex, or Alex Green in the artistic world, is a citizen of the world, dependent on the circumstances in which he lives and the people with whom he interacts. Today he may be in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, but tomorrow he may be our neighbour in Lisbon, Portugal. It is a cypher that defines that people are made up of the places they go through, the interactions they have and the experiences they assimilate. We are not just from our homeland, but from the world as a whole.
Based on this premise, Green, in 2018, decides to take up a year travelling all over the world, taking advantage of the fact that he has several friends spread across the globe. From Salt Lake City he’s off to India for a friend’s wedding, across Japan from coast to coast, and finally to Europe, where he’s fully investigating the United Kingdom, always accompanied by his 65 litter backpack, just in case.
For each new country and culture he visited, he always found something he found curious: totally different points of their daily lives and, at the same time, a warm human connection that connected him to all these different ways of living.
And this is the creativity of “Curvature of the Earth”: a record that captures the essence of all these experiences as if we were there beside Alex. Because we don’t need a lot of fireworks to make a true piece of art.
We are presented with 9 themes, starting with “Curvature of the Earth”, “Praha Hlavni Nadrazi” and “Kottiyoor”. Through them, we will hear many sounds, background noises and everything that surrounds the artist while he walks through these unique cultures. And it is from the Czech Republic to India that we are amazed, either by the landscape that we dream of while our eyes are closed or by the screaming way in which everything seems to be well detailed.
“Like a Hole in My Head”, “Philately” and “Silent Engrams” bring us the Asian culture to the surface, with some of the tension that is being lost in a lost in translation, in visions different from ours and where the language issue can be a barrier. All this is translated into ambient rhythms and beats, which can perfectly be heard in any corner of the world, while we walk around.
We close the journey with “Thinking With the Wrong Head Again”, “Prettier in a Different Context” and “Circular, Me” the perfect ending to this adventure, where we are greeted with a kind of retrospective on everything we have been, what we are and what we will be in the future. Astonishing.
Alex Green has managed, in just over 40 minutes, to take us on a journey around the world. And it’s so striking that we don’t want to escape this very personal pace.
Have a great Christmas 2021.