It is not possible for music to be literally blurry, but Theo Alexander’s songs are the closest approximation. The Chinese-British London native has a composition style grounded in neoclassical piano, but interwoven with cassette four-track tape loops and manipulations to create a dreamlike state that sounds as if the music is being remembered in real time, not so much eroding as shifting, becoming amorphous with every note played.

This unique approach has roots in his past: Growing up in North London, Theo Alexander jumped from instrument to instrument: first he played the cello, then the guitar, and then, at 13, he landed on the piano. Later, Alexander abandoned his piano lessons, choosing to teach himself and apply his training to the various noise and doom metal bands he played in through his early 20s. Though he’d go on to study music at university, and gain a master’s degree in critical theory, he gravitated toward the experimental side of classical music, led by living legend minimalists like Philip Glass. “I didn't realize that classical music could be a much less academic affair, “ Alexander says. “And I began to push myself a bit more towards performing my ideas.”

From 2015 on, Alexander released five albums in three years across multiple labels like 1631 Recordings (Hauschka, Dustin O’Halloran, Library Tapes) and Blank Editions (Thurston Moore, Ben Vince), all of which existed in the middle ground between austere minimalism and an unparalleled emotional depth rooted in his experimental background. His music is at once technically dazzling and remarkably open, and 2017’s ‘Broken Access’ was the culmination of all these previous works.

“'Broken Access' came about soon after my tape-only release, Points of Decay,” says Alexander. “I wanted to take the relationship I had forged between the piano and cassette recorder on that album and make it fuller, more dynamic. The title came from this idea that we can only ever have a partial experience of whatever we encounter, that something is always missing from our perception of it, and for me the imperfect, wavering tape loops capture this difficulty.'”

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Theo Alexander - Palliative (Single)

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Theo Alexander - Palliative (Single)

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