Alex Paxton — Delicious
Alex paxton
Delicious
Release date: May 16, 2025
Praise for Alex Paxton
“This is what an orchestra can be like in the 21st century:
an ensemble that speaks with one voice yet also gives voice to each of its members” —The Times
“Brimmingly heartfelt multi sensorial...makes me grin and groove...super nova of a new work”
—New Music Show BBC 3
“Surfing on the crest of [Paxton's] exuberance is an extraordinary experience”
—The Wire
On May 16, 2025, Alex Paxton, the British award-winning composer and jazz trombonist described as “a magician of sound...hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...joy & freedom” (Financial Times), and “extremely modern and future-oriented” (Paul Hindemith Prize 2023) releases his fourth record, Delicious, via New Amsterdam Records.
Coming on the heels of 2023’s Happy Music for Orchestra, which was lauded for its “brightly coloured, loopy joy..sweet energy and frantic humour” by The Guardian; a string of performances by The London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, and Klangform Wien; and Paxton’s performance at Bang on a Can Longplay 2024, Delicious marks the composer’s debut on a US label.
Delicious is a 21st century sensual maximalist behemoth drawing from Paxton’s “highly innovative...exceptional creative imagination” (BBC music Magazine) and his virtuosic craft of orchestral fireworks. Winds, strings, harpsichords and brass blend together with pitch bent samples, electronic textures, chopped vocals, and drum machines into gestures of kinetic and harmonious luxury. At the core of this music is Paxton’s keen melodic sense that ties together his intoxicating kaleidoscope. The album is described by the composer as “biting into a strawberry, exploding with the sensory details of being alive”. Delicious is dense, abundant, and bursting with joyous fervor.
The music on Delicious was recorded by Dreammusics Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC), GBSR DUO, and Explore Ensemble.
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Delicious is a joyous and satiating sonic experience from start to finish, set within a utopian ambient landscape, orchestrated like a symphony and decorated with a.s.m.r. inflections. The music unfolds organically, giving a sense of improvised structure, yet every detail is meticulously composed for maximum listening sensation. Like a flock of birds able to shift on a wing’s beat, Paxton finds the perfect pacing between these episodic dreamscapes. Momentum is key to this music. Each piece, section, or episode has a trajectory that feels surprising, yet inevitable upon arrival.
“This music is often rich in harmony and diverse stylistic influences, grown from our fast internet behaviours, video games, hyper-pop and highly detailed production. World-building for full bodily sonic experience: the heart, head, gut and bum. Technological fireworks fungi-fused with the pastoral,” explains Paxton.
The common thread in Paxton’s musical language is melody. He elaborates: “I start composing by following a feeling. Melody is the core of my musical language and the first thing I write. For me, tunes are the most tentacular of music languages able to reach all kinds of alcoves, juices and specialities of our existing. The harmony of a piece is always looking for the maximum pleasure and everything left to do I call “orchestrating’. Here I am constantly imagining to experience the music through the whole body, from large gradations you can feel in your navel to tiny nuances of sensual experience like rain on the back of your ears, or a funny smell.”
Delicious opens with the hocketing strings and birdsong of Touching Sweetly. Distinct song-like melodic phrases surf on top of flowing harmonic kaleidoscopes that rage into the sensuous popping-candy chewing of Scrunchy-Munchy and gushing “sunshine-pop” infused Kite.
The large electronically-augmented ensemble used in the 20-minute Shrimp BIT Baby Face creates a universe of sounds with multiple sonic layers, ranging from large landscapes to specific characters, melodies, and microscopic bacterium sounds. Shrimp BIT journeys to multiple elaborately-orchestrated episodes, enhanced by noise, samples, arcade sounds, and voices, which create a sense of explorative world-building. Paxton describes this piece as “hanging out with your best friend, who you definitely don’t fancy. Not even a little bit.”
Paxton contrasts the electronics presented in Shrimp BIT with pieces like the chamber music-oriented Dadd’s Fairies, which features singing strings and florid winds, yet Paxton’s affinity for balancing on the edge of order and sensual-abundance is felt even in this most acoustic of pieces. Elements of noise and skittering lines round the edges as ornate strings and fluttering whistles propel the music forward.
Meanwhile, the harpsichord and kazoo that open Justgum Friends set the stage for a melting, dreamlike experience where it feels something as if familiar has been turned inside-out, and covered in glitter and bubbles. Paxton says “it’s like one of those cassette tape dreams where you can fly but can’t go round corners, also your mom is a badger.” The sense of music as joy, humor, and general surreality are present in every layer.
Along the long Orange light exemplifies the sincerity at the core of Paxton’s melodic language. The composer elaborates, “tunes that can be sung in 2 part candle-light madrigals which then climb and soar through rich harmonic landscapes as if on eddies of hot air.”
A somber moment of respite can be found near the end of the record with Flowery Preserve String Mulch Dress Dump, a piece constructed around a simple melodic phrase that that loops seamlessly in a jelly of voices, glass harmonica and bird song (transposed down 4 octaves).
We are immediately cast into a sea of moaning in Is That All You've Got To Say To Grandma Then Is It?. Even within this hyper-dense swirl, ear-worm melodies rise to the surface. Rich harmonic structures enable “Escher-waterfall” like illusions to eternally descend. Whistles play a tune over top. A sample reciting the title of the song leads us to the album closer: Levels Of Affection. Circling back to orchestral textures, Paxton delivers a series of free-flowing fragments. Over the course of the album, Paxton teaches us to surrender to the spontaneous sensuality of the “now” and the intimacy of delicious tunes.
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Track Listing
Touching Sweetly (from Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (kite and finger run))
Scrunchy Munchy (from Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (kite and finger run))
Kite (from Scrunchy Touch Sweetly to Fall (kite and finger run))
Shrimp BIT Baby Face
Dadd's Fairies
Justgum Friends
Yeasty Pets & Best Drums (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Mouldy Moany Snog Drip (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Three Horned Tooth Garden Beast Piercing (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Along the Long Orange Light (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Flowery Preserve String Mulch Dress Dump (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Is that all you've got to say to Grandma then is it? (from Spit Crystal Yeast-rack dripping (à lorange))
Levels of Affection
Credits
Alex Paxton Composer
Performers:
Dreammusics Ensemble
Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC)
GBSR DUO
Explore Ensemble
Commissioners:
Ensemble Modern & Impulse Graz (Track 1)
Gaudiamus Festival (Tracks 1 & 4)
Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC) & Riot Ensemble (Track 2)
Explore Ensemble (Tracks 5-10)
London Symphony Orchestra & Colin Matthews (Track 3)
Royal Philharmonic Society (Track 11)
All tracks apart “Just Gum Friends” Courtesy of G. RICORDI & CO., Bühnen- und Musikverlag GmbH, Berlin – a division of Universal Music Publishing Classics & Screen.
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