Alex G – Beach Music

Alex Giannascoli pens songs like it’s some kind of bodily reflex; swift, spontaneous and essential. Beach Music is his seventh album in five years, and if anything he’s gaining momentum: since last year’s DSU, the Philly-based prodigy has dropped out of college, signed to Domino and knuckled down to music-making full-time – a change in circumstances that has produced his best work yet.

Beneath the rough-hewn veneer and casual disposition there’s considerable ambition and imagination at play, with tracks like Salt (a slow, shimmering ballad with an ominous undertow and unpredictable structure) and In Love (a piano-led lament with vivid trumpet fills) taking Alex G into fascinating new territory. Elsewhere, Thorns restates the melancholic influence of Elliott Smith, Station segues precariously between layered melodies, and Brite Boy delivers a breezy one-man duet; lead single Bug, meanwhile, evokes both Sebadoh and Alvin and the Chipmunks in the space of two-and-a-half minutes, to compelling effect.