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Alex Silver

@halfvivid.bsky.social

110 followers 120 following 400 posts

Folk music experimentalist and French teacher. Portland, Maine area. https://alexsilvertown.com https://alexsilver.bandcamp.com/

alexsilvertown.com

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Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 1d

The world was fragrant, dense, and multi-dimensional until what, like 2014?

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 2d

This is a lovely, patient album that "makes sense" whether you play it in the trees or the dark fold of an idea-world. Calming and I love "A Vivid Imagination" for its images.

julien demoulin @juliendemoulin.bsky.social · 7d

I'm back with a new release, under the new alias Forest Dweller!
Mastered by @exitchamber.bsky.social / Out now on CS/DL on Peak.
juliendemoulin.bandcamp.com/album/foreve...

Forever Elusive, by Forest Dweller

juliendemoulin.bandcamp.com

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 2d

One of the things I appreciate about your account is that you point to things that are easy to understand but difficult to imagine.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 2d

Looking forward to reading this.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

Oh no. Thank you, I'll be paying attention.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

What are you feeling is gross? I've felt a little discouraged lately too, but more with regard to its momentum and how most IRL friends aren't here. Trying to stay steady. Feeling like you're seeing acrid stuff?

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

Are you on Subvert? There's an interesting related thread right now.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

Damn, very cool

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

I'm happy for your potential employment—but I'm afraid you dented my naiveté in a way I cannot afford.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

Fell off for a bit, but you didn't! Can't wait to get back :)

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

This is very interesting, Frog—now I'm in. Thanks for the tip.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 3d

Awesome background on Portland, Maine's (so-far) successful effort to prevent a Live Nation venue.

See @spacegallery.bsky.social,
@umaw.bsky.social, and Maine Music Alliance

#portlandme #music #arts

jacobin.com/2025/10/live...

Musicians Against Live Nation–Ticketmaster

Live Nation–Ticketmaster controls nearly every corner of the US live music business, from ticketing to touring. In Portland, Maine, a coalition of venues, musicians, and art workers rallied the city a...

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 8d

"In the latest case for East Coast Country music"

Them Blundstones, they ain't cowboy boots / Me and you, we’re just blundering on through / A dozen beers ahead of most of the rest of the world

Thanks Ugly Hug!

uglyhug.com/2025/10/01/c...

Chico States Share “A Dozen Beers”, Announce New Album | Single Premiere

In the latest case for East Coast country music, Chico States shares “A Dozen Beers”, the first single from their upcoming album I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground out October 23rd via Anythin…

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 8d

Chico States has a new single out today through The Ugly Hug. I wrote the blurb for this album. Can't wait for you to hear the whole thing on Oct. 23.

uglyhug.com/2025/10/01/c...

Excited to welcome Chico States to the bagel fam with this fantastic third record. Hope you enjoy :)

This third full-length of encyclopedic Americana shows Joseph Barresi elaborating on his odd merger of personal minutiae and public history. 𝘐 𝘚𝘢𝘸 𝘈 𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘰 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 appears almost Lorca-esque in its take on the hyper-current-meets-the-heriditary. Coming off a few years of heavier performance and a shifting and expanding membership, Chico States’ band shows a pithiness in style and sonic clarity that earlier records hadn’t yet realized, partly due to scale. But here you can feel—in mind and chest—the distance and scary spaciousness of Barresi’s experience of travel through subcultures of the Pacific Coast, France, Aotearoa, Maine, or even along tracks in imaginary locations like Farmington Bay. It’s difficult, and rewarding, to know an artist whose voice confuses you about what’s real and what’s simply interesting. Barresi’s is like that, and this third record gives it a durable body.

Like the tongue-and-cheek term “American primitivism” Fahey gave to his guitar music, the terms cosmic Americana or even anti-country become easier ways to understand this music. But the joke is that there is no actual desire to appropriate: in fact, Barresi’s songs are achingly sincere and concerned with real relationships to tradition, place, people, and 2020s gestalt. Folk music, from Roud Ballads to the documents of Appalachia made by Alan Lomax, has always expressed the individual situation in a way others feel inclined to repeat. In recording highly idiosyncratic, personal music borne out of compulsory love for rail systems especially, Chico States permits us to partake in the organized disorientation normally reserved for trainspotters.

- Alex Silver

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 8d

I do and your sanity is bracing

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 9d

Thanks for the teacher appreciation, and for the Radio Is A Foreign Country tip!

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 9d

Continuing to look forward to this. Can't wait to see how he pulls it off with a longer narrative.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 9d

Not embarrassing at all.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 9d

Cool! @wwborders.bsky.social is awesome :)

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 9d

Just listened to the main performance yesterday. Sounds wonderful, love the play off the motif and just noticing subtleties over time.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 10d

Keep us posted!

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 11d

Portland does seem big to this rural Michigan kiddie

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 11d

You never know, when the coincidence is there it's really fun

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 11d

That's crazy. No, I didn't. I'm from Michigan. Explains why I can never get that for a username haha.

Alex Silver @halfvivid.bsky.social · 11d

Yeah :) Maine.