Greens
ARTIST BIO
Greens is a project of distinct origin, but without specific execution. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Alex Brooks, a veteran of Albany music as a drummer and bass player, took a step away from the sideman job to focus on writing semi-confessional material that is at once intimate and wide-lensed. He wrote most of the songs in isolation and seclusion, as a way of processing past traumas and present uncertainties. To move forward with the project, however, Brooks knew he wanted to flesh the material out with a large ensemble with a collectivist mentality. Taking inspiration from 70s Americana and jam luminaries like The Band and Grateful Dead, Brooks assembled a chamber orchestra rock group, sometimes lovingly referred to as the Greens Family Band. That 9-member ensemble of open-minded friends and Albany heavyweights formed the core of the recording musicians featured on this EP, though even more friends joined in the process of overdubbing and arranging, ultimately creating a unique blend of alt-country revivalism that embraces freak folk, ambient electronic, lo-fi noise, space rock, and indie rock. The band will often perform live in sizes ranging from 1 to 6 members, though the spirit of the performance is always anchored by the high quality, emotive songs developed by Brooks. Emphasis is always placed on an all-singing, all-dancing, group participation dynamic, as the minutiae of daily life described in the lyrics often widens suddenly into explorations of the psyche and of human nature before rising into a transcendent declaration of purpose, where the band bypasses traditional choruses in favor of repeated couplets belted in unison over cacophonous stirrings from the group.