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As Alex Izenberg was piecing together the sweeping, psychedelic opuses on his full-band debut Alex Izenberg & The Exiles—out July 26 via Weird World/Domino Records—the Los Angeles artist was focused on a simple goal: making something built to last. At the heart of his songs are bold ideas that take inspiration from the heady musings of philosopher Alan Watts, the multi-layered storytelling of King Crimson, and the imagistic vistas of Fleet Foxes. While the subject matter may feel esoteric—“My unconscious named the tongue/Of the lights of closed eyes” goes a characteristic lyric—Izenberg and his band let the music drift pleasantly to earth. The melodies are romantic and warm, and the arrangements are invitingly expansive, making expert use of a new ensemble formed around the strongest songs of his career.
The core of the band is Izenberg’s childhood friend and primary collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Greg Hartunian. The pair co-produced the record at Tropico Beauty in Glendale, California, where they let the songs carve out their own paths, building from Izenberg’s intensive, months-long writing process. “We were on a mission,” he reflects on their collaboration. “We have this unspoken bond—we don’t worry about being too weird.”
They soon let an array of collaborators into the conversation, including drummer Jay Rudolph (Weyes Blood), keyboardist Tyler Cash (Devendra Banhart), bassist Max Whipple (Sparks), pedal steel guitarist Connor Gallaher (Lana Del Rey), saxophonist Colin Kupka, guitarist Dashiell Le Francis, and vocalists Marina Allen, Juliana Giraffe, Gracie Jackson, and Colby Nathan. Accompanied by gorgeous string arrangements from Izenberg and Cynthia Tolson (MUNA), the record marks a bold new introduction for a timeless songwriter.
Fitting for a record that collects Izenberg’s widest array of collaborators, he expanded his process further by enlisting veteran producer Phil Ek to mix the album. “In the past, I've had trouble handing off my work,” he admits, always preferring to handle things on his own. But knowing that Ek worked on some of the records that most inspired his own music—particularly Fleet Foxes’ 2017 album Crack-Up—helped to calm his nerves. The resulting sound is just as intimate as any of Izenberg’s more hermetic material, while casting a mystical, communal glow that feels brand new in his body of work. The sound is equally soulful and cerebral, cryptic and immersive, masterfully catchy and slyly complex. Both musically and lyrically, Izenberg sounds at times like he is speaking a language entirely his own.
It may feel effortless, but this style has evolved steadily over the course of a strange, singular career. A California native who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2012, Izenberg has long used music as an outlet for self-expression and connection. At the age of 12, he found an early supporter in pop songwriting legend Linda Perry, who heard him playing at a local Guitar Center and felt compelled not only to buy him his first guitar but also to sign him to her label. Eventually a teenaged Izenberg was fronting a band, opening for rock legends on tour, and honing his craft: a distinctly modern approach that takes influence from the golden age of ’70s classic rock and prog.
In the time since that prodigious education, Izenberg has developed a loyal following for his deeply felt, carefully crafted outsider art. With a growing community of artists around him, his
work has ranged from minimalist folk to elaborate, orchestral song cycles. No matter the tools at his disposal, he has always exuded an earnest ambition, representative of a voracious thinker who refers to studying Yes’ 1972 landmark Close to the Edge as a spiritual practice and turns to the gothic poetry of Edgar Allen Poe for lyrical inspiration.
“I wanted to make something that would endure the coming years and decades,” he says of his latest record. “I felt that in order to do that, I needed to do things that other people aren’t doing.” The music may have precedent, but placing it within a specific lineage can be tricky. Highlights like “The Wraith Behind Our Eyes” might sound at first like a disco-era rock hit played at half-speed, warped and burbling, lurching to its own seductive groove. Others like “Only the Moon Knows” feel a bit like Yellow House-era Grizzly Bear suited up for the symphony on acid. Blended with poetic lyrics that drift between abstract impressionism and firm treatises on the human condition, his music aims simultaneously for the head and the heart, designed to be scoured for interpretation while lodging in your head on first listen.
Alex Izenberg & The Exiles tackles lofty subjects like god and death, love and fate, dreams and free will. “I wanted to ask the big questions,” Izenberg explains, “and comment the big comments.” Even the name of the band, which provides the title for the record, draws inspiration from the isolated lives of the philosophers who inform Izenberg’s style. While these tragic figures helped him find his voice, Izenberg resists any sense of hopelessness within his own music. “Taking back my solitude/Goodbye blues,” he sings over swooning strings in the chorus of “An Obscured Odyssey.” Set to one of the record’s most elegant melodies, his words carry a hint of triumph while acknowledging a murky darkness in the periphery.
Izenberg notes that it was an unconscious choice to pair his most contemplative and intensive writing with his most uplifting, immediate music. But the breakthrough feels earned. “I’ve been good friends with everybody in the band for a long time,” he explains of their lived-in approach—a blend that’s dynamic enough to house a full-on Pink Floydian sax solo in “Threaded Dances,” a gentle Laurel Canyon ballad like “Dreams of Déja Vu,” and the huffing, percussive “Drinking the Dusk Away.” Nearly every song feels like the centerpiece, and for the first time in Izenberg’s career, the dazzling sound matches the grandness of his vision. And yet, old habits die hard and he still delights in misdirection. “Life doesn’t always make sense—most times it doesn’t,” he says with a laugh. “So why should my songs make sense? In a way, the lack of coherence might allow them to make more sense.” On Alex Izenberg & The Exiles, his message has never been more direct, his voice has never been clearer, and his beautiful, untraceable logic has never felt more suited to the world around him.
