Artist: Alex Hirsch
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Country: USA
Genre: Prog rock, experimental
Single/video: We’re All Alone Together
Format: Digital
Label: Independent
Release date: June 28, 2024
Alex Hirsch is an independent, self-promoting guitarist and musician who creates and shares videos on his Youtube channel. Having composed and recorded original music since the 1980s and 90s, he was the vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist for the San Francisco indie/progressive rock band Imprasia alongside Gully Weiss, Peter Rochelle, and John Krug. Their 1993 album “Seedless” remains available for streaming and purchase across various platforms.
Rooted in prog principles, the blend of prog, classic rock, jazz fusion, funk, reggae and some pop created a self-contained album and a catalyst for future opportunities to create fusion, demonstrating how different pieces to a puzzle can unite where they fit. Hirsch’s solo work is as unpredictable as his work with Imprasia, as he explores new methods and concepts like a painter approaching a canvas with colors artists don’t typically use.
Experience, professionalism, technical skill, and theory knowledge in his compositions are deepened through sentiment and receptivity, enhancing breadth and depth. His Youtube channel features innovative interpretations of Avril Lavigne, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, and pop artists like Katy Perry. The work he put into composing “We’re All Alone Together” demonstrates the same synergy, balancing pop-based acoustic guitars, ambient keyboards, rap-likened beats and melodic vocals.
This two-minute track, borrowing footage from the Godfrey Reggio-directed non-narrative film “Koyaanisqatsi,” features a lyrical passage meant to capture a brief moment in time, as if reminding us of our fleeting sense of connection and our state of isolation from each other as humans. Setting it to “Koyaanisqatsi” is an interesting move as its stock footage visually represents everyday life in contemporary urban society.
The rapid movement of people through city streets mirrors the lyrics, emphasizing how little we truly know each other and highlights the world as a microcosm of our own lives. Perhaps the intention is to inspire us to recognize our differences as we pass one another by, learning to agree to disagree without taking it personally or stuffing people into boxes because of differing viewpoints. In that context, the line "maybe we're going somewhere and maybe not; doesn't really matter anyway" doesn't promise a better future or warn of impending cataclysm. It's only a reminder that people are people at the end of the day. –Dave Wolff
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