Alexander and Fam

Time Out NY
Preview

Alexander Ebert retires Edward Sharpe and comes up trumps as himself.

Part of the charm of the song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is that it’s about coming home, finding yourself, returning to something abiding. It’s an affirmative, rooted yes. It was cool, too, that the backstory matched up so neatly: that singer Alex Ebert had been around the block a few times—fronting Ima Robot, getting addicted to drugs, generally self-destructing—before finding sweet salvation performing as Edward Sharpe.

Didn’t last long, though. Ebert is now making music under his own name; he plays all the instruments on his solo debut, Alexander, and is currently touring with a band called Fam. No official, juicy explanation has been given for his old band being shelved, but this new album is sweetly appealing stuff, combining 1960s spaghetti-Western pop (à la Lee Hazlewood) with a pinch of old-school ska.

It’s the kind of music that comes on when you’re having a lovely drink on a beautiful day and you think, Mm, this is nice. And just as you know that this little moment in the sun will pass (as all things do), so too Ebert will likely return to NYC next year performing as someone else entirely. What to do? Enjoy it while you can, of course.