Alex Delzer Takes Us Behind the Curtain on "Thoughts About My Loneliness"
Review by: Emily D. Schmidt, Writer
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner/Editor @PlaylistTC
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Between the dense, intricate layers of sound, the honest lyrics, and the use of a voice note that the artist recorded for his real-life therapist, each listen of Alex Delzer’s album Thoughts About My Loneliness brings something new. Topped with the artist’s genuine passion for his craft, these tracks are a music nerd like myself’s dream to pick apart — but the generally upbeat feel and other-worldly audio effects make for an exciting surface-level listen as well.
I’ve known Alex since 2015. He puts an incredible amount of thought into his music. I had the honor of attending the release party for Thoughts About My Loneliness (TAML) where he overviewed each track’s production and lyrics before playing them for us to hear for the first time. Following him from the beginning of his career, TAML features some of the self-taught electronic music producer’s most polished pieces. He’s settled into a distinct style that, according to Alex, comes more effortlessly to him and is simply music he’s always wanted to create.
I recommend listening to the album in two ways: first, listen to it played very loudly over very large speakers. That was how I first heard it, and it was ethereal. I imagined myself sprawling out on the floor, my body absorbing the sound waves and vaporizing into the sky. If you enjoy Joji’s “SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK,” you’ll enjoy this album. The sound Alex has built hits you like a brick wall, but in the best way possible. “I’ve gotten less and less afraid of layering,” he said. “It’s this ‘not knowing where to look’ sort of sound that happens, like ‘oh, there's so much going on here.’ Then you have to let it breathe.” Alex does just that. Intermittent breaks of silence contrast the walls of sound, and you suddenly realize just how thick the tracks are and how much thought must have gone into each layer.
But it was the other way I listened — wearing headphones and sitting at my desk — that made me notice the layers and effects individually. If you listen closely, much of Alex’s singing is doubled or tripled both in higher and lower harmony. Other vocal effects include energetic “HUH”s in “Sorry,” whispering in “Kids Who Need Jesus," and reverb in “Good Excuse,” to name a few. He also uses a theremin-like melody at the end of “Six” and video-game-like flourishes throughout “Waiting.” Many of the songs have grandiose endings where all of these elements climax into a symphony of sounds that punctuate what you heard earlier in the tracks. One of the things I appreciated after talking to Alex about this album is his intention behind all of these layers and effects. “It's an amalgamation of things I enjoy,” he said. “I don't want any layer or any element that I'm producing to be thrown away.” You can feel the thought behind every noise, and each listen brings a new level of discovery and understanding that keeps me coming back.
On top of the awe-inspiring musical elements, TAML also offers meaningful lyrics. The album’s title is what Alex called an eight-minute voice note he recorded for his therapist on a late-night walk in 2021. The songs comment on the memo in retrospect, but not necessarily in direct chronological order. “I'm answering the things that I'm talking about in the voice memo,” he said. “Here's just one moment in time that I was thinking something, and here are my collective thoughts over several years about it, like the ‘state of the union’ essentially of where I'm at.”
An idea he and his co-producer had on their brainstorming board for this album was to make the listener feel like they stumbled behind the curtain at a performance, like they saw something they weren’t meant to see. When he told me this, I immediately thought of the end of “Rain To Blame 1.” It closes with over 30 seconds of Alex crying, captured by accident. I audibly gasped when I first heard it, and my stomach fell to the floor. I was behind the curtain.
Thinking about this “behind the curtain” concept made me realize something: that experience will look different for everyone. While I may feel like I’m not supposed to be there, others may be intrigued and creep further backstage. In any case, Alex’s album is an honest collection of thoughts many have had, but fewer have had the courage to share with the world. As stated in the album’s first song, Alex is “in the ink” he used for these songs. Thoughts About My Loneliness is not only a collection of complex, entertaining music, but also a unique glimpse into someone’s personal experience with a feeling we’ve all had.
You can listen to Thoughts About My Loneliness on Spotify, or you can support Alex by purchasing it from his website. Alex also produces music for other Minnesota artists, and you can reach out to him on his Instagram if you’d like to collaborate.
