We have featured Oakland’s The Saxophones, the project of husband and wife Alexi Erenkov and Alison Alderdice, several times in the past, and we’ve found new delight each time. There’s something uniquely entrancing about the duo and their brand of jazz-inflected slow dream pop, what we’ve previously likened to “a sad croon in a sparsely filled dance hall.
In March, The Saxophones will release their sophomore album, Eternity Bay, on Full Time Hobby. The follow-up to their 2018 debut Songs of The Saxophones, the album was made following the birth of the couple’s first son, an event which understandably influenced Erenkov’s writing. “My music has always grappled with mortality and the meaning of existence,” he says, “but the birth of our first son and the imminent arrival of our second has greatly heightened my sensitivity to these themes.”
Today we have the pleasure of unveiling the album’s second single, ‘Lamplighter’. Rich with the band’s distinctively Lynchian blend of romantically unhurried instrumentation and syrupy vocals, the track plays subtle percussion and barely-there guitar against smooth, slinky sax.
“The song takes its name from a bar on the misty Washington coast where I spent an evening drinking with close friends,” Erenkov describes. “The night and the following day’s walk on the beach were both enjoyable, but I was particularly struck by how much my conversations, thoughts, and actions were avoidant of the present. Whether through alcohol or simply distracting myself with thoughts of the future, I find ways to fight reality.”
There has always been a quiet grandiosity to The Saxophones, their sound taking inspiration from West Coast jazz, ’50s exotica and ’70s Italian lyricism—a kind of velvet sophistication that holds each song. But there’s a darkness hidden in the folds too, and in the case of ‘Lamplighter’ this comes in the form of self-delusion and the ephemerality of all things, even concepts as big and supposedly lasting as love.
“While indulging, I often convince myself that I’m on some kind of path to enlightenment,” says Erenkov, “that I’ll find an escape from impermanence and be able to touch the eternal. But all of my hedonistic impulses lead me back to the same reality. And I’m left to face the fact that even the truest love is impermanent.”
Eternity Bay will be released on Full Time Hobby on the 6th March and you can pre-order it now from selected outlets or via The Saxophones Bandcamp page.
Photos by Conner Sorenson