The Alexsander

The Alexsander is an intriguing artist in that he keeps himself seemingly anonymous, but his talent is very much hard to hide. He draws inspiration from artists like Hans Zimmer, Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, all the way to Michelangelo, and there is an obvious formally trained touch in everything you hear from him. Now having launched his Hypnotic Rhythm label, we chatted to him to find out a little more about this mysterious talent… 

Hey The Alexsander, how are you, what’s been good and bad for you this year?

Hey DMC, thank you for having me! I’m good thank you! Well this year has been special, ups and downs, a good awakening but bad for musical plans and events. I spent more time discovering more analog gear, reading, developing more skills in music, arts and technology. Also been meditating more, which has been very good for being in balance to all these problems in 2020. Times like these make you rethink your existence and everything in this world.

Why stay anonymous? What is the thinking behind it? What or who inspired that move?

In a world where everyone does everything to get attention and expose themselves, I rather not seek that kind of focus/attention, but rather on the music and creativity around. I want the mystique there for the listener.. No-one really inspired me, more of a personal choice, but at some point, when the time is right, I would love to tell my life story. It’s definitely worth writing a book about.

When do you think dance music will return as we know it? How different will it be?

I think when people realize their freedom is about to be taken away from them, then they hopefully stand up and protest for it and the survival of music & arts. I don’t think anyone wants a life in front of a screen only. There’s only one way to experience music and its live. It’s food for the soul.

Has this time of lockdown and no gigs been in anyway good, have you found new skills, had to learn things about yourself an innovate in ways you wouldn’t have otherwise?

Yes., both personally and professionally. From exploring analogue setups, art and visual performance. To explore the way our reality experiences sounds and vibration and the connection to it to our health and the healing effects in it.. Definitely useful time to reflect on life, also. Times like this are really the perfect time to reinvent ourselves, the world and industries. For me it resulted in creation of a few app solutions both for the music industry and society. I studied programming, design and marketing in university also, so these lockdown times made me go into a kind of a solution oriented mindset for music, new ideas and other projects I’m part of.

Tell us about your label Hypnotic Rhythm – why you started it , what the aim is?

Hypnotic Rhythm is my way of getting creative musical ideas out and involving other kinds of creators to participate. Combining digital and vinyl releases, label nights and other interesting creative ways to showcase music. Mixing house and techno and indie, experimental music with a trance progressive, tribal and disco touch in the sound. The idea is to create a platform for new upcoming artists to thrive on, to release music, create conceptual musical pieces, performances and sound experiences together.

Any labels you look up to for inspiration or who you think did it the right way?

R&S, Young Turks, XL, Kompakt, Ghostly, Warp, Diynamic Music. I like their approach to their label structure, the family vibe, events creation and the mix of music and arts. It’s definitely something I’m taking inspiration from while building the releases, label and artists with my team. I think the best always is to stay open minded and take the best inspiration that resonates with our vision..

Will there be albums in future, maybe vinyl, and is artwork important?

For me, yes, and for the label, for sure.. A mix of artists will release music on the label, from club music to an acoustic electronic mix of music. Live artist to djs and visual artists involved in collective creation of musical journeys, products and events. But my main focus right now for the label, is to push my music, combined with other artists’ remakes of my originals. Then slowly bring in other artists for releases.

Artwork is very important, especially for the experience of it on vinyl packaging. You not only get a good piece of music, but a visual story to the track, in the sleeves of the vinyl packing and so on. I’m excited to start our vinyl production soon, it will come after we reached an x amount of releases.

And the latest third EP on the label – what inspired it? Where was it written? Did you still write it with the club in mind?

My latest track release is called “All I wonder”, supported by danish melodic techno master Kölsch. He actually has his own version of “All I wonder”, which is a bit different from the original. The track was created when I was staying in Stockholm, Sweden for some months. I wrote the main melodic parts during a sunset, in a small little house by the water in the Swedish archipelago. This one wasn’t really written for the club, more for the headphone experience. I do from time to time write only for the club but I would rather not limit myself to club versions only. Feels like tracks are just getting shorter today. Don’t get me wrong, I love long sequenced melancholy melodic elements mixed with driving tribal percussion that is just hypnotizing and perfect for the late hours in the club.

Are you formally trained in any way? There are lots of lush arps on the record right?

I have played guitar and piano since I was a kid, but also studied audio engineering & classical music composition in university. I always seek to develop and learn more. I think it’s important to have that mindset because it kind of gets you bored of creating if you don’t develop. Repeating the same thing over and over really kills creativity. My favourite piece is definitely arpeggiators, I got stuck with it since I was a kid. My first electronic song that I can remember, at the age of 5 years old, was Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygene part 4. Those arp sounds must have followed me since then, cause I use arps on almost all my tracks haha.

What is next for you, what are you working on?

I’m releasing on legendary UK label, Stress Records the 30th October on their Club Culture album, together with Dusky, Alex Metric, Eli Brown and more. Plus two more tracks coming for a separate Stress records release. 3 Singles lined up on my label Hypnotic Rhythm with remixes, one EP on my friend Adin label and a few collaborations lined up, among them with my label friends In Lakech, Ve:Modet and Rob Kali. Right now I’m trying to release my music only as much as possible via my own imprint together with remixes on every release. An album during 2021 maybe, also I’m releasing music under a new alias called Alter9. More coming.

The Alexsander’s “All I Wonder” is out now on Hypnotic Rhythm

Grab it here – https://www.beatport.com/release/all-i-wonder/3117201.

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