Following a four-year silence, enigmatic LA-outsider Alex Izenberg resurfaced at the end of March with the bouncing and playful love ballad “Disraeli Woman”. Today, Izenberg has doubled-down with the announcement of his sophomore album Caravan Château - due out July 31 via Weird World / Domino - and new single “Sister Jade”, arriving with a video directed by frequent collaborators Giraffe Studios.
Izenberg on Caravan Château: Today it is my pleasure to announce that my new album Caravan Château is coming out via Weird World on July 31st. I’ve been working hard on it and I’m extremely proud of these songs. It was recorded largely at Tropico Beauty with Greg Hartunian and Derek Korat with whom I’ve spent many long days and nights in the studio, retracing steps and forging new paths. Sometimes we hit walls and other times we found bliss, but those long nights were always chock-filled with lol’s.
I hope my music can reach people like me who don’t have a lot of money or means and be a guiding light in their lives for good, serving as a safe haven in times of sorrow, happiness, loneliness or longing and know that I’m right there with you and always will be, even if our paths never directly cross.
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On Caravan Château—the beguiling 11-song reflection on the house of mirrors that is love—Izenberg creates a sophisticated world of his own, where songs that are somehow understated but lavish map the vagaries of our uncertain hearts the way wrinkles chronicle a lifetime of experience.
With the help of a handful of collaborators including Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Jonathan Rado (Foxygen, Whitney, Lemon Twigs), Ari Balouzian (Tobias Jesso Jr) and others, Izenberg creates songs that are easy to adore but hard to define. Izenberg’s sharp songs are the bait that first brings you into Caravan Château, but that deliberate ambiguity is what brings you back repeatedly, hoping to tease out the riddles of being inside these stunning tunes.
In 40 minutes, Izenberg flings open another window onto a scene of fractured beauty and romantic longing, a place where music itself is a coping mechanism. From the narcotized sway of “Saffron Glimpse” to the charming bounce of “Sister Jade,” from the backmasked blues of “Dancing Through the Turquoise” to the peppy shuffle of “Lady,” Caravan Château is visceral and gorgeous, troubled and sympathetic, instantly likable and richly textured.
Izenberg emerged in late 2016 with Harlequin, a fetching collection of hazy art-pop hymns praised for their “sweetness and heart.” Not long after the album’s release, Izenberg became emotionally unstable, though, beset by a failed relationship and inevitable post-debut questions about what came next. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 2012, Izenberg has spent a lifetime learning to cope with and overcome fear, to turn doubt into power rather than paralysis.
For Izenberg, music is a lifeline, or the lens that helps him refocus the world and make sense of his mess of feelings. He pulls art and existence together as if by tensile wires, one giving necessary support to the other. On Caravan Château, the intensity of that connection radiates through every song, Izenberg working through some of life’s hardest feelings by writing songs as soft as his heart.
Caravan Château is available to pre-order now on LP, CD and digital formats. A limited edition 7” of “Disraeli Woman” b/w “I Don’t Want You To Hurt Anymore” is also available via the Domino Mart, as a standalone or bundled with the Caravan Château LP. Pre-Order: Dom Mart | Digital
Caravan Château tracklisting: 01. Requiem 02. Sister Jade 03. Anne In Strange Furs 04. Disraeli Woman 05. Saffron Glimpse 06. Dancing Through The Turquoise 07. Bouquets Falling In The Rain 08. December 30th 09. Lady 10. Revolutions Girls 11. Caravan Château
