Set in a derelict hotel floating upon Aotearoa’s Southern Seas, Alexander Guy‘s first offering Last Call at the South Sea Hotel plays out like a warm, intimate gig. There’s a variety of songs on display here, from the more typical, folky sounding ‘Don Quixote‘, to the potentially cursed ‘House by the Sea‘; the French ‘Les Champs de Mars‘ to ‘The Queen of Cortisol‘, a modern ballad for the anxious artist.

The 10 songs feature just himself on a nylon-plucked guitar, “They’re how I’ve always played them so far, just by myself, for a few friends at the end of a party or when the bar’s quiet” and are tied together with chattering souls popping up between the songs, a mermaid singing from the beach, and a cheeky barman pouring pints. With personal introductions by the artist for many of the songs (who trips and mumbles over his own words before continuing on to the next number).

They’re songs about growing up and leaving, of sunny days hitchhiking down the country, of characters moving from place to place, never quite finding home but trying anyway. They’re straightforward and realistic at the onset, but turn into more surreal and psychedelic offerings in the latter half, with wandering knights and angels drifting through the songs. There is a bumbling philosophy about the album, a sort of willful naivety to try to see and believe in the beauty of things.

The songs were recorded within a single session in a hut among the hills of Houghton Bay, Wellington “in an attempt to capture the feeling and immediacy of live performance.”

“I recorded a couple sessions over a month or two, but always felt like I could do the songs better. I actually recorded these on my last night in the country before leaving, it felt like a real goodbye then, and I’m quite happy about how these turned out. They’re not perfect of course, but they were never supposed to be, and I think they capture that time and that feeling as well as they could have.”

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