Alex G

Alex Giannascoli, who records as Alex G and for a time billed himself as (Sandy) Alex G, is a songwriter from the Philadelphia area. He began self-releasing music as a teenager in Havertown, Pennsylvania, and his homemade recordings spread through Bandcamp, blogs and burned discs.^[1]

He was a Temple University student when his album DSU came out on Orchid Tapes, after which he left school. He signed to Domino, which released Beach Music in 2015 and Rocket in 2017.^[1] He has worked with mixer Jacob Portrait on every full-length since Beach Music.^[1]

He also played guitar on Frank Ocean’s Endless and Blonde and toured with Ocean’s live band for a handful of shows.^[1] His 2019 album House of Sugar, home to the single Gretel, was inspired in part by Hansel and Gretel and populated by gamblers, addicts and con artists.^[1][2]

At the time of his 2014 FADER profile, Giannascoli was a 21-year-old English major in the Philadelphia area with a Bandcamp full of home recordings; by 2015 he had dropped out of college, saying he lacked the discipline for school and wanted to focus on music.^[3]

Beach Music was recorded mostly by himself in his apartment and at friends' homes between late 2014 and spring 2015, with Jacob Portrait mixing it.^[3][4]

Beach Music was recorded between fall 2014 and spring 2015 and produced by Giannascoli himself, and its cover was painted by his sister Rachel Giannascoli.^[3] He has said he approaches albums as a snapshot of who he was when he made them, and that staying honest matters more to him than polish.^[4] On the track Mud he sang alongside the Philadelphia-area musician Emily Yacina.^[3][5]

In spring 2017, just ahead of Rocket, he began billing himself as (Sandy) Alex G without explanation, a change reviewers read as a sign of a more band-like project; one outlet attributed it to a legal conflict with another artist.^[5][6] He has said he prefers not to explain his songs and likes to leave lyrics open to interpretation, building words around the rhythm of a melody.^[6]

Rocket (2017), released as (Sandy) Alex G, was largely self-recorded with a laptop and microphone alongside friends and bandmates, with his partner Molly Germer contributing violin.^[8] Reviewers credited his time working with Frank Ocean with giving him the confidence to widen his sound on it.^[9]

Giannascoli has described building songs from small instrumental ideas: chord progressions come from guitar, arrangements from looping the best of what he has recorded, and vocal melodies from humming. He kept recording much of Rocket himself on an old copy of GarageBand 6 after joining Domino, and he names Modest Mouse and their nonsensical lyrics as an early influence.^[9] Rocket was captured with a laptop and microphone carried in a backpack, with mixing by Jake Portrait in Greenpoint.^[10]