“I started writing what now has become Loyal as a mental break from my personal anxieties,” explains Jakub Alexander, referring to his first proper Heathered Pearls LP. “I wanted to find a world that was built on repetition, erosion and melody because making these songs was about recreating soothing environments.”
That much is clear as each crystalline cut fades into the next; soothing and unsettling in equal measure, it’s as if the drugs suddenly don’t work and you’ve just uncovered–and cracked–an emergency supply of Ambien. None of which should be all that surprising considering Alexander’s years of curating the music content at Tycho’s ISO50 site and signing similarly minded artists to his own Moodgadget imprint.
For another look at the production side of Alexander’s output, check out the exclusive Slowdive edit below, which he describes as follows…
When I was younger Melon Yellow always stuck out to me, I always wanted an extended version that was a wall of sound like Souvlaki Space Station reached but then I also started to adore the resonances and the restraint, it taught me to be patient and to wait for things I love in listening to an album in full. Ever since then though I appreciate the range of ambience more and more, the original ends soo beautifully.
This was kind of a project of reworking the original for a younger me, to immerse the song in a version with fullness and push the hypnotic end, some sort of chaotic live version where they leave everything on and drop their guitars and leave the stage letting everything just ride out.
