Simon Alexander - “lemon trees”

If we told someone that they only had two minutes and thirty-nine seconds to make us fall in love with their music, Simon Alexander would likely bust out a guitar and play “lemon trees.” Alexander comes to us from Gothenburg and just released his EP, Telefunken by Night Vol I, the first batch of tracks from his upcoming full length, aptly named Telefunken by Night. But first let us tell you all about “lemon trees.”

This song opens with the confident strumming of an acoustic, which is quite a welcome change from the softer finger-plucking that we generally feature, and we can see this track calling patrons’ immediate attention wherever it might be played. The guitar is good, but the vocals are where the money is– Alexander has one of the richest voices that we’ve heard in quite some time, offering the listener a sort of Gregory Alan Isakov-Jeff Buckley hybrid– two of our absolute favorite singer-songwriters. And if you don’t believe us, just wait until just after the track hits the ninety-second mark, because the falsettos found therein will split your heart right open. And they come complete with ghostly backing vocals that transform this gentle breeze of a song into a mighty wind. Alexander has the rare ability of making a simple production (guitar and vocals) come out sounding as robust as any song that features a full band.

Alexander adds that “lemon trees” is “about someone who’s having trouble letting go of things, and instead of learning how to cope with it wallows in their own misery. The song acts a reminder that you always have people around you that want to help, but only if you let them.”

-TM