Nest—a local Nashville favorite—Alex G, and Title Fight make for quite the trifecta. It’s no wonder the show sold out rather quickly with a venue as intimate as The End. It’s just as well for those who managed to snag tickets: there wasn’t a dull moment in the small space throughout the show, culminating in Title Fight’s all-out chaotic performance that garnered some of the most intense and committed crowd-surfing I’ve ever witnessed.
Alex Giannascoli—Alex G, as he is known—has been particularly prolific this year, releasing Rules earlier this year, and then, satisfying the anticipation of his small but loyal fan base, Beach Music last Friday. Beach Music does far more than just satisfy, though: in typical Alex G fashion, it will take you on an introspective journey that is far from kitschy and saccharine, and yet remains surprisingly accessible.
The south is strange and everyone’s always known it. Maybe that’s why some of the best music has always bubbled up from it. People have their own ways of dealing with things, which isn’t exclusive to the south of course, but southern people don’t like change, as the cliché goes. As music generally does, southern music takes on a lot of the characteristics of the environment it’s created in. Think of the twang of old country, the sparse emptiness that can stand in for anything from countryside desolation to sheer heartbreak. Screwed and chopped rap, pitched to the point where every lazy bass rattle thumps with its own measured certainty. The unabashed euphoria of D4L, of New Orleans bounce music, of Soulja Boy and the great tradition of the barbecue. There’s a reason NYC rappers shunned melody in rap for so long while Future and Young Thug practically warbled their way into other dimensions. The south is aware of its strangeness, and it doesn’t make amends of concessions for it.