Daisy Glaze's Alix Brown and Louis Epstein

Photo by Vincent Perini.

Daisy Glaze’s otherworldly outlaw psych conjures a richly cinematic sonic universe built on a tapestry of tones inspired by Electric Prunes, Serge Gainsbourg and Ennio Morricone. Following release of their debut album, Alix Brown and Lous Epstein sat down with The Eisenberg Review to discuss their self-titled release, the different eras of Big Star, exploring ancient Portuguese castles on acid, their favorite films and more.

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Is your project’s name a Big Star reference?

Alix: Yes.

Excellent.

Louis: That’s Alix’s favorite band, no?

Alix: Probably one of my favorite bands.

Where do you sit on the Chris Bell versus Alex Chilton eras? Do you like one direction of the group versus the other?

Alix: I appreciate Chris Bell. I love his solo records, but I definitely prefer Alex. He was a little more prolific. He lived a little longer, I guess that’s why. I do like the tragedy of Chris Bell. It lends to a nice story, but I like Alex’s solo stuff better, especially Like Flies on Sherbert.

I always attach a little extra bit of weight to self-titled albums, because to me they just feel a little bit more declarative of identity, as if the body of work speaks as to who the artists are a little bit more. What made this material right for being self-titled?

Louis: We thought of it almost like a soundtrack to a movie that didn't exist. That's why we have the instrumentals in there. And because there's no movie, it was almost silly to come up with a title. I think it's self-contained. That's why it seemed proper to just be like: "This is what it is. It's one thing."

I love that. It's a flag planting. This is your first body of work that you're releasing together, so it makes sense. And you've touched on the profoundly cinematic dimension to your music. I think particularly on some of the latter cuts, I really like “Statues of Villains” for that in particular.
It goes to that outlaw psych sound. You have a little bit of Serge Gainsbourg, a little bit of The Electric Prunes, a lot of stuff from that era that everyone should know and love. I love the fact that your music transcends media in that it is both music but also has a cinematic dimension to it. So what are films that have influenced the both of you, either individually or as a group?

Louis: Alix is definitely a bigger filmophile.

Alix: There's so many. I mean, for soundtracks, Ennio Morricone obviously and his films, the stuff he did with Dario Argento and all the westerns and the Sergio Leone and the Corbucci. And then the ‘60s, 10th Victim. Have you ever seen that one with Ursula Andress?

I haven't.

Alix: That is the Piero Piccioni. It's a different Italian composer. And Piero Umiliani who did a lot of ‘60s film soundtracks like…

Louis: Yeah. He's amazing.

Alix:... The Girl with the Moon Skin. And I actually met his daughter through Instagram, crazy enough, because I was posting some of her father's music and a friend of mine who's a writer in Italy was like, "Oh, this girl loves your father's music." We connected and we started talking because I spent a lot of time in Italy, and she was like, "Oh, next time you're in Rome, come by the studio." And I was there last summer and I got to go check it out and they were just renovating it and now it's totally finished and they refurbished the whole studio. Yeah. So now I can see it finished this summer when I go back, hopefully.

Louis: Maybe we do our next album there.

Alix: Yeah, maybe. Totally.

I was going to say, your first record you recorded in Portugal, maybe the next one in Italy.

Alix: Right. I know.

I'm fascinated by the creative process, so I want to dig into the process of recording the record. You flew to Portugal to record the record with acclaimed producer, Sonic Boom, who you've noted as an influence even prior to working with him. Why the decision to fly to Portugal to record? Was that where Sonic Boom was? Or was there a studio or a particular vibe you were looking to cultivate?

Louis: Yeah, he lives there. And when we connected with him, he was willing to come to New York, although, from what I gathered, he's not a huge fan of the States. He was like, "If you guys come here, there's no distractions." We took our drummer and our keyboard player with us who were playing live with us at the time. And all of us would've been doing different things if we were in New York. It would've been harder to just do it like an intense period of two to three weeks. It was cheap out there. He's like, "I know a great studio." It sounded just more special, honestly.

Alix: More inspiring.

Louis: Yeah.

Definitely.

Alix: Oh, where we were staying, we weren't in Lisbon proper, we were in Sintra, which is where all the Moorish castles are and super beautiful up there and remote and...

Louis: Rather psychedelic.

Alix: And psychedelic. We took acid and went to the castles and we were like, "Wow, we're in the clouds." I think we were in the clouds.

Louis: Yeah. Yeah. Feels like you're in the clouds…

Alix: It was pretty cool.

Louis: ... especially with a little acid, huh?

Alix: And it's actually the same place where they filmed The Ninth Gate.

Louis: Oh, really?

Alix: That Polanski movie with…

Louis: Yeah. The Ninth Gate. Johnny Depp.

Alix: ... Johnny Depp. True story.

Louis: I didn't even know that. I love that movie.

Alix: Yeah. It's fun.

That's incredible. I'm a big proponent of just always getting some geographic distance between you and your responsibilities as a means of facilitating creativity. We're distracted at nauseam nowadays. It's just nice to get out. Being there, were all the 10 tracks that are on the record, were they being worked on beforehand? Did they come together over the course of your time in Portugal? What was the writing process like?

Louis: The songs were written before. With Sonic, the element that he added was really vibe and texture. He pulled in local string musicians from the conservatory there. Honestly, it's funny, because I think if we would've done it, say in Nashville, the record could have come out pure Americana. If you stripped down the songs, some of the songs could just be some country twang stuff. I guess that was another added bonus of doing it in Europe. You got less of the intense Americana that's in some of the bones of some of the songs.

Alix: Yeah. Some of the instrumental ones that we did though, I feel like we fleshed those ones out more when we were there. One starts the first side and one starts the second side. Because I look at it as an album. I still look at it as a record. There's two sides. So we started each side with one of the instrumentals and it gives way to the feeling of that side of the record.

Louis: Yeah. Those were fleshed out a lot more when we were there, for sure.

And I love that element of it because it not only sets up both sides, but it makes every separate side a journey, which is super cool. The first is almost more tone setting and the second is just incredibly cinematic. “Mary Go Round” in specific. I was curious to see that there was a Sean Lennon co-write on that tune. Tell me the story of how that came about.

Alix: Well, it was a couple years ago. Well, man, more than a couple years ago, 10. So that song is over 10 years old probably. It might be around 10 years old by now. But we just jam a lot because pre-pandemic when he was spending more time in the city and not upstate, he has a studio downtown and would always have people over jamming. And we just came up with some songs one night with my friend, Tennessee, who's a drummer, and that was one of them. And then we formulated it and he helped me write the lyrics basically.

Louis: And I fixed it, right?

Alix: And then you fixed it.

What do you mean fixed it?

Louis: No, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding.

Alix: I mean, we never put it out or anything. It was just a fun whatever song I came up with and I was like, "Oh, I feel like this would be good for this record." And it stands out. It's a little different.

Louis: We did a few different iterations of that song too, if you remember.

Alix: Yeah.

Louis: One had sort of Asian bells and stuff. It almost sounded like straight out of a karate movie, which I think will remain on my computer. It should have been in a 70s karate movie.

I very much want to hear this version of the song now.

Louis: On the 10 year anniversary of the record. It'll be on the re-release.