Alex Calder (ex-Makeout Videotape) announces new solo album Strange Dreams, streams first single

Alex Calder (ex-Makeout Videotape) announces new solo album Strange Dreams, streams first single

Once upon a time, Edmonton native Alex Calder had a little something going on with Mac DeMarco: Makeout Videotape. Not an actual make-out videotape; the duo played under that name between 2008 and 2011, leaving
a string of charming lo-fi songs behind, but enjoying a rather limited impact. I don’t need to tell you what happened to Mac DeMarco, whose career rocketed in the past couple of years, a time Alex Calder took to set his drum kit aside and polish his songwriting chops, preparing Strange Dreams, his first solo LP.

This is actually Calder’s sophomore album, following last year’s EP Time. Just like what happened with Mac DeMarco’s solo music, which took Makeout Videotape’s promise toward a more classic pop route, Calder’s compositions refine the psych aspects of the duo’s songs. As you can hear in “Strange Dreams,” the album’s first single, there’s a lysergic shade to Calder’s warped take on indie pop; enough to link it to Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Lotus Plaza, eminent practitioners of said style. And it’s not just the orphic imagery, so ingrained in Bradford Cox’s work, that these two have in common; Calder’s voice bears an uncanny resemblance to Cox’s. And that’s a great thing, if you ask me, meaning we will not be deprived of hazy garage psychedelia while Cox sorts out Deerhunter’s creative future, a process last year’s spotty Monomania hinted at.

Further softening the lo-fi remnants still audible in Time, “Strange Dreams” hooks you with delightful melodies, a dozy vibe and a rhythmic vivacity telling of its creator’s percussion-playing roots. You can stream it below. Strange Dreams is out on January 20 via Captured Tracks.

Strange Dreams tracklisting:

01. Retract
02. Strange Dreams
03. Out of My Head
04. Memory Resolve
05. The Morning
06. Marcel
07. Lola
08. No Device
09. Life Purpose (feat. Caitlin Loney)
10. Mid Life Holiday
11. Someone

• Alex Calder: https://www.facebook.com/AlexCaldermusic
• Captured Tracks: http://capturedtracks.com

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