Out Digitally and On Cassette August 21, 2026

I’m always writing, and I’ve come up with a few songs over the last few years that have really excited me. There was no big picture of how everything fit together though. A lot of the material I felt the most confident about came from playing with a new instrument, the Nord Drum 3P Percussion Synthesizer, which I bought in late 2023. It unlocked a lot of rhythmic ideas with much more sophisticated, modern sounds than my old drum machine. I really enjoyed mixing other synthetic sounds with organic sounds like acoustic guitar, upright piano, and my Hofner Beatle bass.

I tried to think about the words ‘playing music’ in the same way that a kid might play with toys. This included trying weird combinations of instruments, including sounds which might sound tacky in a different context: MIDI trumpet, orchestra hits. I tried to invite people into the best part of my imagination - a surreal, funny, warm place.

Around November of 2025, I realized I had seven or eight songs that fit well together and conveyed a very specific tone that was both cozy and playful. When a critical mass of songs that fit together emerges, it creates a sort of dart board for further songwriting. I start to sequence things and figure out where the gaps are. In December I started writing to plug in those little gaps and had a beginning, middle, and end.

So I have a new record that feels very special to me. It’s ten tracks, just about 30 minutes, and it’s called Noon Island. The name of the title track came from reading Clive Barker’s book Abarat, which takes place in a series of magical islands, each of which perpetually experiences the same time of day. Having recently made a midlife career change, I think of Noon Island as a place where “everything’s still possible,” whether in relation to a day or a life. It’s a nice encapsulation of a period in my life where I’ve felt greater freedom and relaxation.

The thing I’m most proud of is that I can’t really name a clear influence. I could name some records that inspired me, like Robert Wyatt’s Shleep, Julia Holter’s Aviary, Yo La Tengo’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and The Magnetic Fields’ Holiday, but the album doesn’t really sound like any of them.

Noon Island will be available digitally on all major streaming services, and fifty copies will be available on a cassette with an 8-panel booklet featuring lyrics, photos, and the beautiful album cover painted by my friend Adie Janci. As always, I humbly urge the use of headphones for full immersion in the island (apartment) soundscape.

- Alec, July 2026