ALEX PAXTON - Kite. Delicious
On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, Alex Paxton, the British award-winning composer and jazz trombonist described as “a magician of sound...hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...joy & freedom” (Financial Times), and “extremely modern and future-oriented” (Paul Hindemith Prize 2023) announces his fourth record, Delicious (out May 26, 2025), via New Amsterdam Records.
Coming on the heels of 2023’s Happy Music for Orchestra, which was lauded for its “brightly coloured, loopy joy..sweet energy and frantic humour” by The Guardian; a string of performances by The London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, and Klangform Wien; and Paxton’s performance at Bang on a Can Longplay 2024, Delicious marks the composer’s debut on a US label.
Delicious is a 21st century sensual maximalist behemoth drawing from Paxton’s “highly innovative...exceptional creative imagination” (BBC music Magazine) and his virtuosic craft of orchestral fireworks. Winds, strings, harpsichords and brass blend together with pitch bent samples, electronic textures, chopped vocals, and drum machines into gestures of kinetic and harmonious luxury. At the core of this music is Paxton’s keen melodic sense that ties together his intoxicating kaleidoscope. The album is described by the composer as “biting into a strawberry, exploding with the sensory details of being alive”. Delicious is dense, abundant, and bursting with joyous fervor.
The music on Delicious was recorded by Dreammusics Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC), GBSR DUO, and Explore Ensemble.
Accompanying the album announcement, Paxton releases the Sunshine-pop infused ‘Kite’: a joyous simulacrum of what it feels like to fly a kite. Whistles and bird song set the stage for an explosion of winds and strings, low trombones, a sing-song melody, a.s.m.r-drum-machine-trap percussion, and vocal ecstasies.
About Delicious
Delicious is a joyous and satiating sonic experience from start to finish, set within a utopian ambient landscape, orchestrated like a symphony and decorated with A.S.M.R inflections. The music unfolds organically, giving a sense of improvised structure, yet every detail is meticulously composed for maximum listening sensation. Like a flock of birds able to shift on a wing’s beat, Paxton finds the perfect pacing between these episodic dreamscapes. Momentum is key to this music. Each piece, section, or episode has a trajectory that feels surprising, yet inevitable upon arrival.
“This music is often rich in harmony and diverse stylistic influences, grown from our fast internet behaviours, video games, hyper-pop and highly detailed production. World-building for full bodily sonic experience: the heart, head, gut and bum. Technological fireworks fungi-fused with the pastoral,” explains Paxton.
The common thread in Paxton’s musical language is melody. He elaborates: “I start composing by following a feeling. Melody is the core of my musical language and the first thing I write. For me, tunes are the most tentacular of music languages able to reach all kinds of alcoves, juices and specialities of our existing. The harmony of a piece is always looking for the maximum pleasure and everything left to do I call “orchestrating’. Here I am constantly imagining to experience the music through the whole body, from large gradations you can feel in your navel to tiny nuances of sensual experience like rain on the back of your ears, or a funny smell.”
Delicious opens with the hocketing strings and birdsong of Touching Sweetly. Distinct song-like melodic phrases surf on top of flowing harmonic kaleidoscopes that rage into the sensuous popping-candy chewing of Scrunchy-Munchy and gushing “sunshine-pop” infused Kite.
The large electronically-augmented ensemble used in the 20-minute Shrimp BIT Baby Face creates a universe of sounds with multiple sonic layers, ranging from large landscapes to specific characters, melodies, and microscopic bacterium sounds. Shrimp BIT journeys to multiple elaborately-orchestrated episodes, enhanced by noise, samples, arcade sounds, and voices, which create a sense of explorative worldbuilding. Paxton describes this piece as “hanging out with your best friend, who you definitely don’t fancy. Not even a little bit.”
Paxton contrasts the electronics presented in Shrimp BIT with pieces like the chamber music-oriented Dadd’s Fairies, which features singing strings and florid winds, yet Paxton’s affinity for balancing on the edge of order and sensual-abundance is felt even in this most acoustic of pieces. Elements of noise and skittering lines round the edges as ornate strings and fluttering whistles propel the music forward.
Meanwhile, the harpsichord and kazoo that open Justgum Friends set the stage for a melting, dreamlike experience where it feels something as if familiar has been turned inside-out, and covered in glitter and bubbles. Paxton says “it’s like one of those cassette tape dreams where you can fly but can’t go round corners, also your mom is a badger.” The sense of music as joy, humour, and general surreality are present in every layer.
Along the long Orange light exemplifies the sincerity at the core of Paxton’s melodic language. The composer elaborates, “tunes that can be sung in 2 part candle-light madrigals which then climb and soar through rich harmonic landscapes as if on eddies of hot air.”
A somber moment of respite can be found near the end of the record with Flowery Preserve String Mulch Dress Dump, a piece constructed around a simple melodic phrase that that loops seamlessly in a jelly of voices, glass harmonica and bird song (transposed down 4 octaves).
We are immediately cast into a sea of moaning in Is That All You've Got To Say To Grandma Then Is It?. Even within this hyper-dense swirl, ear-worm melodies rise to the surface. Rich harmonic structures enable “Escher-waterfall” like illusions to eternally descend. Whistles play a tune over top. A sample reciting the title of the song leads us to the album closer: Levels Of Affection. Circling back to orchestral textures, Paxton delivers a series of free-flowing fragments. Over the course of the album, Paxton teaches us to surrender to the spontaneous sensuality of the “now” and the intimacy of delicious tunes.
About Alex Paxton
Alex (1990), ”highly innovative...of exceptional creative imagination and musical energy, packed with life force unlike anything else” (BBC Magazine/Ivor Novello British Composer Awards.) is an award-winning composer & jazz-trombonist. His scores are published by Ricordi (Berlin).
He has been described as “A Magician of Sound...hyperkinetic rainbow-hued...joy & freedom” (Financial Times), “the most joyous sound I’ve heard in ages!” (New York Times), "A riotous overabundance of love and rage...an extraordinary experience” (The Wire),”a system-crasher of genre...unmistakable style...highly complex, sophisticated and extremely entertaining, virtuoso ad absurdum" (Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik), and “a super nova...a brazen sensorial mash up...riot and a rainbow...brimmingly heartfelt multi sensorial, genuinely energising fizzer of a new work...super charged joy...forces us all to sit up and loosen up and buck up” (Kate Mollison BBC New Music Show.)
Prizes include an Ivor Novello, Paul Hindemith Prize: “a Brit who defies every conceivable genre boundary…an extremely modern and future-oriented style” Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize: “Unbridled joy…sophisticated, passionate music full of pulsating energy and stylistic diversity”, Elb Philharmonie’s Claussen Simon Composition Prize, RPS Royal Philharmonic Society Prize
Alex has released three critically acclaimed albums MUSIC for BOSCH PEOPLE (Birmingham Record Company/ NMC label), iLOLLI-POP (non-classical) and HAPPY MUSIC for ORCHESTRA (Delphian) as well as many smaller releases. Each has been widely reviewed and featured in Uk, USA and Europe in broad sheets and Music magazines. He is a commissioned contributor to John Zorn’s Arcana X 2021. Releases in 2025 include Delicious and Candyfolk Space Drum.
ORIGINAL TEXT for track by track
Delicious opens with the hocketing strings and birdsong of Touching Sweetly, sounds that are contrasted with accompanied by a fast-paced, arpeggiated figure. This back-and-forth expands as Paxton explores every corner of his chosen motifs.
The large augmented ensemble used in the 20-minute Shrimp BIT Baby Face nods to the microdensity explored by Webern in the early 20th century, but extended into a macroscopic scale. Shrimp BIT takes the listener through multiple orchestral episodes littered with noise, samples, vocal screams, arcade sounds, and voice, creating a sense of explorative worldbuilding. Paxton describes this piece as “hanging out with your best friend, who you definitely don’t fancy. Not even a little bit.”
Paxton contrasts the opulence presented in Shrimp BIT with pieces like the chamber-oriented Dadd’s Fairies which features strings and whistling winds, yet Paxton’s affinity for balancing on the edge of order and chaos is felt even in this most acoustic of pieces. Elements of noise and skittering lines round the edges as wispy strings and breathy horns propel the music forward.
Meanwhile, the toy piano and kazoo that open Justgum Friends set the stage for a melting, dreamlike experience. Paxton says “it’s like one of those cassette tape dreams where you can fly but can’t go round corners, also your mom is a badger.” The sense of music as joy, humor, and general surreality are present in every layer.
A somber moment of respite (0:56) can be found near the end of the record with Flowery Preserve String Mulch Dress Dump, a piece constructed around a simple melodic phrase that lingers in the air. Droning notes frame the short, looped melody as it is played by winds and soft vocals.
We are immediately cast out of the somber mood into a sea of noise in Is That All You've Got To Say To Grandma Then Is It?. Even within this hyper-dense swirl, earworm melodies rise to the surface. An eternally descending line anchors the music, as whistles play a tune over top. A sample reciting the title of the song leads us to the album closer: Levels Of Affection. Circling back to orchestral textures, Paxton delivers a series of free-flowing fragments. Over the course of the album, Paxton teaches us to surrender to movement, to lose ourselves in his relentless flow of ideas, with melody serving on which to stay afloat.
