Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Alex Maas is known for being the frontman and founding member of acclaimed Austin-based psych rock act The Black Angels and psych rock supergroup MIEN. Maas’ life changed in 2018 with the birth of his first child, a healthy and happy baby boy, he and his partner named Luca, which means “bringer of light.”
With Luca’s brith, Maas experienced a flurry of emotions he hadn’t felt before.There was profound joy and awe over the creation of a new life — but there was to some lesser degree, there was a gnawing fear: What sort of world was his son going to grow up into, exactly? And how could Maas protect him from its dangers? “The world is definitely messed up,” Maas says in press notes. “But there’s a lot of good in it too, and that’s why the whole world isn’t on fire—parts of it are. I do believe that there’s more good than evil.”
Named for his first-born child, Maas’ Brett Orrison co-produced full-length debut Luca is slated for a December 4, 2020 please through Innovative Leisure. The album was a long time coming, with some of its material dating back almost a decade — and put together piece-by-piece over the past couple of years. Featuring songs that are a much gentler, meditative take on the psych rock sound we know him for, the album is a decided sonic departure, showcasing what Maas says is “a whole different part of my brain.”
Driven by the quiet, nature-filled expanses of his home state, Luca finds Maas contemplating his son’s future, the terrifying and uncertain world he was born in and how to navigate the perils and frustrations of our society. And as a result. Luca is arguably the most personal and direct material Maas has written in his nearly two decade recording career.
Last month, I wrote about “Been Struggling,” a dreamy and shuffling waltz that reminded me a bit of the melancholy psychedelia of Scott Walker and the classic Nashville sound — but while centered around meditation of memory, fate and loss from the perspective of a narrator, who has lived a messy and full life. “The City,” Luca’s latest single is a woozy and intimate campfire that reckons with the larger, historical cycle of human violence. The hauntingly sparse arrangement manages to evoke the horror, terror and senselessness of our behavior to one another. “The enemy is always just outside the door and the enemy could be anything,” Maas explains.
