Edifications & affinities according to Alexi Belchere
San Francisco’s Gloomy June present new pop songs for all seasons, alongside an expansive exploration of fascinations by Alexi Belchere; photographed by Sarah Arnold.
To refer to Alexi Rose Belchere as one of the hardest working folks in the scenes is an understatement. The San Francisco-based artist has been building communities with a sincere and invigorated passion, hosting DJ events, artist showcases, and stirring up senses of excitement and purpose all throughout the Bay Area circuits. Among countless projects and collaborations, Alexi has captured local attention with the acts Nocean Beach [unabashedly embodying the undefeated spirit of DIY] and the illustrious cult pop cool of Gloomy June. The latter presents the new double single “on my side” and “being together”, where Belchere is joined by fellow talents Ash Hyatt, Devin Nelson, and Jack Sundquist sharing songs of solidarity, support, soaring high on the strong beliefs in a heightened level of sweetness and light [in a shared existence of perennial night].
Both creative outfits possess a very similar goal — to tune toward the most impactful frequencies that stitch together embroideries that speak to the senses. Gloomy June is a collaborative journey to draw upon the connections that make us feel a strong sense of empathy, just as the solo and singular vision of Nocean Beach is a celebration of self-examination, actualization, exploration, and acceptance. Alexi entertains the constructs of the ego and super ego as two sides of the same coin, a drive to create the most catchy and meaningful songs that centers the spirit and cultivates the importance of communities. A polymath who seems to be everywhere in the Bay Area all at once, we present the latest creative developments from the artist who further delves into an array of influential constructs that are key to the engine of their unrelenting volition featured after the following new tracks:
Gloomy June, “on my side”
Alexi and cohorts psychically scale along the lines of hometown battles of the bands bravado and the bombast of ultra top 40 radio pop punk. Not just another trite attempt at anachronistic retro revivalism, “on my side” deals with the yearning to alter the conventional course of time and miraculously restore situations to what they once were (despite all the signs and circumstances pointing to the fact that it was all never meant to be in the first place).
Gloomy June tears into the frameworks of the fantastical that passionately makes a plea for an amorous and healthy partnership that has long since sailed, having ran a rocky course that in earnest could never actually be revisited in good faith, good health, and sound consciousness. The song is a lamentation on the lack of companionship, reaching for the hand of a cherished, loverly friend, now foe, in the pained romantic wishes that it could have all turned out different. The track runs high on the desire to ‘fall back in love,’ grasping at some sort of compromise and reconciliation like a deus ex machina angel seeking to right all of the consequential wrongs of the bygone past.
Gloomy June, “being together”
The band extols everything that we loved about the first decades of the torrential two-thousands. Gloomy June drives through the eras that exalt everything incredible and amazing about what the 90s were in terms of style and creative substance. The track is a tour de force of all things visceral, an arrangement that applies sharply pointed considerations of art school dorm educations to the derelict halls of the music theory dropout varieté. The collection of these visions culminate together as a best of the 2010s blogosphere class that all and all create a synthesis of expressive elements that we as a listening public were largely denied and deprived of.
“Being together” is the new pop testament exploration of what modern romance is, where wistful tones take on the fears that lie deep from within in the pursuit of finding our people within the crowds that cannot be bothered to look up from their devices and insular proclivities. Gloomy June broadcasts the notion that togetherness itself is a radical and misunderstood concept. In a world that increasingly honors and gives the most bandwidth to the self-serving opportunists, “being together” offers up an inclusive ideal that feels far from the halls of congress and executive palaces that pursue agendas of division that seek to cut humanity at the root of its cellular core.
…and now we proudly present…
Foundations & fascinations by Alexi Rose Belchere
Relaxing in the floral fields with Alexi Belchere; photographed by @play_w_cc.
Film scores and soundtracks
I attempted to narrow down my love for movies into a specific film, but what came about was an epiphany: it wasn’t a specific movie that stuck with me, but a sense of magic in film, particularly in the music of the movies. From the dayglo opening credits of “Clueless” zipping across the screen with “Kids In America” by The Muffs playing, to “i2i” by Tevin Campbell in A Goofy Movie, to basically any John Williams score, film soundtracks and scores stick with me, causing me to constantly soundtrack my life without being conscious of it. I’d guess I’m a bit of a sucker, falling for some musical tricks I don’t understand, but songs like “When You Believe” from Prince of Egypt or “If We Hold On Together” by Diana Ross from The Land Before Time bring me the closest I could get to religious.
Diana Ross, “If We Hold On Together”
Liminal spaces on road trips
Nothing puts me in a more creative space than staring out a window on a train or in the backseat of a car, or straight ahead driving on highway 5. Sometimes a walk in nature or standing next to the ocean can do the trick, but listening to “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius while driving through the Napa-Sonoma marshes or “Mariella” by Khruangbin and Leon Bridges at sunset somewhere in New Mexico hits like a waking dream. I’ve more than once had to pull out my notes app at a gas station to get ideas out.
boygenius, “Not Strong Enough”
Ethel Cain, “American Teenager”
Leon Bridges & Khruangbin, “Mariella”
New, new romantics rolling deep — Gloomy June; photographed by Sarah Arnold.
Sitting on the back porch with my grammy while she smoked Dunhills and read The New Yorker
My grammy was an effortlessly classy lady. She painted, took photographs, played the piano, slept with NPR on and cooked with KMozart in the background; as a result, I thought creating art and surrounding yourself with music was as ordinary as brushing your teeth. We spent New Year’s Eve watching the Sex and the City marathon (which I was probably too young to watch,) and New Year’s Day watching the Rose Parade (which I think I’m still too young to appreciate). My grammy lived about a 10 minute walk from my elementary school, and I would walk to her place after class and feel very independent. Sitting on the back porch with her and her dog while she read the paper, and I read the funny pages, plumes of blue smoke wafting from the tip of her Breakfast at Tiffany’s-size cigarette holder—all of it—is a core memory for me and I think a foundation for who I am as an artist.
Maurice Ravel, “Daphnis et Chloé"
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross with the Count Basie Orchestra, “Avenue C”
On soundtracks again, The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Kingdom Hearts, and Miyazaki films
I think I was 10 years old when Ocarina of Time came out, and as bad as I was and continue to be at video games, this game changed my life. Not just a game of puzzles and hack and slash, Ocarina of Time incorporated playing music as a form of magic. From teleportation, to causing rain, to causing a grumpy dude to dance, music had power in this game. In real life I purchased an ocarina necklace and learned to play all the Zelda songs, which also lead to me attempting to read my Nightmare Before Christmas sheet music and translate to the one-octave instrument around my neck. I also use this space to give a shout out to the Kingdom Hearts (Yoko Shimamura) soundtrack and the work of Joe Hisaishi on the Hayao Miyazaki films—as both of these bodies of work possess a similar magic, music that feels almost tangible like wind in your hands.
久石讓 Joe Hisaishi Live, "One Summer's Day" (from Spirited Away)
Utada Hikaru, “Simple and Clean” (Kingdom Hearts ending)
Gloomy June fighting the doom, gloom, and boom with floral flights of fancy; photographed by Sarah Arnold.
Pop girlies
I was in the sweet spot of being a millennial with older siblings that even when I went off to college, I was heavily influenced by the hipsters of Pitchfork magazine, and when they started telling us that “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen is a masterpiece actually, I was inclined to put down my Neutral Milk Hotel record and embrace the pop girlies, and I’m so glad I did. “Stay Away” by Charli XCX lead me to her Pop mixtapes, and eventually to tons of pop girls who were doing pop in a sexy underground way. To me, Carly Rae has always been sort of a one hit wonder to the mainstream (so sort of sexy underground in all other ways) and was left alone to make Emotion, one of the best pop records of the oughts, and Emotion Side B, one of the best and silliest. Pop girlies also lead me to pop producers—my faves are Dan Nigro and Jack Antonoff—which lead me to even more pop girlies like Remi Wolf and Lorde. Now my dream is to play All Things Go festival on the east coast, which seems to have wrangled the perfect mix of queerness and pop girlieness.
Carly Rae Jepsen, “Higher”
Charli XCX, “Stay Away”
Remi Wolf, “Liquor Store”
Listen to all of Alexi’s endeavors from Gloomy June, to Nocean Beach, and more.