Alexander Ebert releases debut solo album

Following a whirlwind Australian tour with his band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, including stellar performances at Big Day Out nationally, Alexander will release his debut self-titled solo album next Friday 25 February 2011.

During breaks from touring with the Magnetic Zeros over the past year, Alexander (aka Alexander Ebert) began building and recording the pieces that would become the songs for this album alone in his bedroom. Before Alexander, all of the music he worked on had been collaborative, especially with the 10-person Magnetic Zeros. “I wanted to be able to build an album basically with my hands, like building a house by myself,” Alexander remarked of his inspiration for making this album.
 
There isn’t a single sound on the ten track album that Alexander didn’t perform himself. Alone in his room, Alexander had his guitar, a Lowery organ that he picked up at a St. Vincent’s thrift store in Los Angeles for seventy bucks, a clarinet that he used for the bridge on the record’s first single, ‘Truth’ (currently on triple j rotation), and a violin he’d found somewhere in Tucson on tour. He had his own voice, his breath, his knees to slap, his fingers to snap and his toes to tap. When he knew that he wanted to use a violin on the bridge of ‘Glimpses’, he had an urge to call a friend to come play it for him, but then questioned why he wouldn’t try it himself. Says Alexander, “To me, it’s a very humble album with sky’s-the-limit sort of qualities, and so I didn’t really shy away from doing whatever I felt like doing.”
 
As for the music itself, Alexander explains that some of the inspirations for the “mouth sounds” that you can hear throughout the record were from all-time-favorites of his like the 1970 chart-topping ditty “In The Summertime” by British band Mungo Jerry. He also notes that children’s clapping games like Patty Cake and infectious and optimistic Disney tunes like “Zip A Dee Do Da” served as loose inspirations for him.

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