Alex Rex release a new single, ‘Black Peonies’, on Neolithic Recordings.

Available online, the track acts as a trailer for new album ‘Paradise’, due out on July 30th, the fourth that Alex Neilson has made under the Alex Rex moniker.

‘Black Peonies’ features Canadian singer-songwriter Kacy Lee Anderson, one half of Kacy & Clayton, and is described as a “not-so-pure Bubblegum country romp” (and opening with “I wear the knickers you gave me when I play football with the boys”).

The accompanying video was shot in Glasgow and directed by acclaimed musician, filmmaker and choreographer Daisy JT Smith, who has worked on videos by Sam Fender, Introvert by Little Simz and plays bass in South East London band Phobophobes.

Alex Rex are, pretty much, Alex Neilson – drummer with acts ranging from Bonnie “Prince” Billy to Shirley Collins, Jandek and Current 93, plus his own act Scatter, as well as being the main force behind Trembling Bells over the space of a decade.

Much of the album was written in early lockdown with no opportunity to rehearse – which also happens to be Neilson’s preferred working method.

“Choosing talented people to record 13 songs that they’ve never heard before with a 3-take limit, to my mind this captures the songs at a vital tipping point, he says, “where parts are being discovered for the first time by musician and listener alike.”.

“As a songwriter I have felt an increasing certainty that I must have something important to say. Some illumination on the basic nature of things. Some cue card where aphorism and aphrodisiac meet” explains Neilson.

More at www.facebook.com/alexrexband and neolithicrecordings.com.