Ones2Watch Home

Photo: Clare Shilland

It’s been over two years since Alexander O’Connor, better known as Rex Orange County, has released a full-length project. The English artist returns with his fifth studio album, The Alexander Technique, delivering a raw and vulnerable body of work.

The Alexander Technique reads like the pages of a diary, a soul-baring glimpse into the mind of an artist whose life and career were turned upside down in the blink of an eye. While it feels extremely personal, it’s also as relevant to anyone willing to listen. In a world where everyone feels like the “main character,” The Alexander Technique leaves the listener with a profound sense of sonder, a reminder that every single person experiences a complex life that’s as deep and as vivid as one’s own.

The first track “Alexander”—a sing-songy piano-vocal—sets the stage for this introspective collection of songs, reminiscent of Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen's Poetry for the Beat Generation. The song serves as a poignant starting point for the next two tracks, “Guitar Song,” which explores the uncertainty and lack of self-assurance that comes with being 16, and “2008,” a nostalgia-drenched love letter to simpler times.

Any person who has to pay rent in this economy knows all too well the feeling of longing for simpler times, but “2008” is not just filled with hopeless yearning. It’s a sentimental recollection of childhood memories and an homage to seminal rap albums, like Nas' Illmatic and Jay-Z’s The Black Album, which influenced not only a whole genre but also Rex’s younger self. The track begins with a brief but beautifully sewn-together instrumental and vocal chop that feels like you’re watching your childhood home videos through the backseat window of the family SUV. The opening lyric perfectly parallels such an experience, painting a picture of a young Rex sitting in the back of his mother’s car discovering a love for rap music. The song explores Rex’s budding obsession with music at the end of an era when fans actually bought music (Ironically, 2008 is the same year Spotify launched and the music industry switched from being “transaction-based” to being “access-based”). “Everyday, pushin’ in my CD player / Listenin’ like I’m insane” he sings, “It’s the same each time I do it ooh / Ain’t no skipping through.” 

The next few tracks snap the listener back to Rex’s modern-day reality, complete with self-therapizing, late-night overthinking, and a serious bout of jealousy. The 16-song album goes on to explore the artist’s struggle with feeling overwhelmingly passionate at times to feeling misunderstood and disconnected from his own life. ”The Table” sees Rex navigating these themes playfully and in a lighthearted stream of thought, while other songs like “Pure” and “Much Too Much” dig deeper into the intense emotions that come along with loving someone.

Content-wise, The Alexander Technique is an emotional rollercoaster, similar to the ups and downs of the human experience. The James Blake-assisted “Look Me in the Eyes” is undoubtedly the most heartbreaking song on the album (and has some serious potential for sync placement in any coming-of-age films or TV dramas). Blake and Rex’s duet vocal performance feels particularly liminal but is pure ear candy at the same time. The harmonies on lines like “And I know exactly what you’re thinking / It all went by while we were blinking / And we never got to say the things we always wanted to say / Before it’s too late / Before it’s too late” are enough to make anyone shed a tear. It’s a heartrending ballad that leaves a stinging emotional numbness. But by the time the credits roll on the album and at the risk of experiencing emotional whiplash, you get a sense that Rex is back to feeling as passionate and content as ever. Sonically, this project is experimental and adventurous, with Rex exploring new production and melodic choices that at times feel disjointed, but are not so much out of place as they are reflective of his discovery of who he is and what makes him tick.

The Alexander Technique is not a light listen. It showcases the good, the bad, and the ugly of living life in a world that’s at times cruel and unforgiving, but also deeply beautiful and precious. Rex Orange County delivers critical vulnerability, passion, and self-awareness in 53 minutes and 16 seconds of exploratory music-making. The singer-songwriter is bringing his latest album and other songs on the road to theatres across the UK and North America. The 'Finally Tour' kicks off in Leeds, England on September 11 before making its way to the US in early October.

Listen to The Alexander Technique below: