Toronto-based artist Alex Exists introduces his new single/music video, “Dancing With Chaos,” a track from his upcoming album, Everybody’s Famous (Except Me), dropping on May 26 via The Confidence Emperors.
Alex explains, “It’s an ode to confronting chaos head on, and having fun with it, instead of running for the hills. It’s a mesmerizing mellotron-driven dirge that paints a vivid pastiche of urban life, and the otherworldliness that lies underneath the facade. Much like the tone and humor in that John Carpenter classic movie, ‘They Live.’”
According to Alex, Everybody’s Famous (Except Me) is similar to “a wrestling match with one’s ego,” narrating a tale of self-discovery in the middle of chaos, channeling the wild energy into a creative process rather than trying to swim against it, letting it eventually drown you.
Alex was eight years old when he began writing and recording songs on his family’s karaoke machine. Later, he founded both The Ruby Spirit and The Nursery, whose debut album, Life After Wartime, won Indie 88’s Best Independent Rock/Pop Band in Canada, followed by the band winning the Toronto Independent Music Awards Best Music Video, for “Digital Ashes.”
“Dancing With Chaos” utilizes a uniquely distorted bass guitar riff generated by an effect, bespoke and engineered by Alex Exists and Scott Fleming. The effect is based on the Japanese fuzz pedal, the Shin-Ei Companion FY-2, which is now quite scarce.
“Dancing With Chaos” opens on low-slung, stridently gleaming tones rolling into a mid-tempo rhythm topped by tints of wavering, lysergic colors. On the chorus, the harmonics ramp up to heavier leitmotifs as Alex’s previously slinky, whispery voice takes on tight, portentous resonance.
“When the world is on fire / And we’re walking on the wire / Surrendering and letting go / Of your illusion of control / Dance with chaos / Dancing with chaos.”
The video, directed by Agata Waclawska, depicts the dreamlike, bizarre surrealness of the present status quo of existence.
Surging with psychedelic-lite textures and raw surfaces, “Dancing With Chaos” reveals the consummate, innovative talent of Alex Exists.
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