Sunday Afternoon Listening Cafe #3

Black the Sun, Alex Lloyd

Sticking with the Aussie music theme, especially as it connects to my first Australia trip, I’m sharing an album that just blew me away when I was introduced to it. I don’t know how I was but it was so unlike anything else I had ever heard and I was immediately smitten. So let’s get to it.

Don’t be fooled by all the A. Wasiliev songwriting credits. That’s Alex Lloyd’s real name. This is his debut solo album, written after his band Mother Hubbard broke up and released in 1999.

As it turns out, Alex did a bunch of things for its 20th anniversary, including a song-by-song breakdown of the album. You can find it here. He talks a lot about the experimentation he did with new production technologies that were just coming out. It’s that experimentation that really makes the album stand out.

As such, I’m not going to do a song-by-song breakdown. What I will say is that at various points in the last couple of decades, My Way Home, Lucky Star, and What A Year have been touchstone songs for me. It’s one of those rare albums that I listen all the way through every time. Enjoy listening.