Alena Spanger - Fire Escape (2024)

A striking vocalist whose melodies trace mercurial and richly emotive trajectories, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Alena Spanger’s debut album Fire Escape—out on March 22 via Ruination Record Co.—is a richly varied collection of songs workshopped in the half-decade since her revered band Tiny Hazard’s breakup. Spanger’s music operates in a space between concrete expression and pre-verbal murmurs, offsetting sharp hooks with unsettling juxtapositions—gasps, muted screams, scrambled electronic blasts. Recalling everything from Joanna Newsom and Björk’s kiss-off anthems to the speak-song of Mary Margaret O’Hara and Life Without Buildings, Fire Escape’s songs take place in the aftermath of emotional upheaval, but also sketch blueprints of a less fraught world, dreaming up idealized realms, both real and imagined.

The album runs the stylistic gamut, moving from otherworldly art songs to anarchic dance-punk anthems to experimental pop tracks interweaving folk melodies, New Age synths, and soulful vocal deliveries. To help build out her ambitious compositions, Spanger reunited with former Tiny Hazard bandmate Ryan Weiner (Not Person), who co-produced and mixed most of the LP. Additional co-producers include Carlos Hernandez (Ava Luna, Carlos Truly) and Winston Cook-Wilson (Office Culture). The album features other beloved NYC performers and composers: Julian Cubillos, teasea, Carmen Quill, Kalia Vandever, and Kitba (Rebecca El-Saleh).