Alex Silver

@halfvivid.bsky.social

181 Followers 176 Following

Folk music experimentalist and French teacher. Portland, Maine area. https://halfvividsongs.com https://alexsilver.bandcamp.com/

Black and white scan of album cover for “Let Me Be A Friend For Lost Time” by Alex Silver with bold text that reads, “Thank you: Tolly Kaiser, Christy Armstrong, Don Cento, Garrett Linck, Sam Woodward, Brianna Soukup, Ranin Brown, Eliott Frank, Cara Scozzafava.”
Screenshot from Subvert alpha-version platform showing a collection by @halfvivid. Featured photo is of ferns in the woods in Maine, struck by clear white-yellow light. Intro text reads: "I always tried to make sure the music in the car made sense with the colors around us. We rolled down the windows so we could feel the cold and hear the hum of the landscape. This is a collection of songs that harmonize with the grass, the shrubs, the world we ignore if we see ourselves as (only) Ideas." Editorial comment on the first track reads: "This is the first track on Mistique but it's also my favorite. The bruised quote from Dawson's Creek gets me vulnerable in the first 35 seconds. Look into Seb Choe's other works—I get the feeling that, for them, music is only a small gesture at problem-solving."
Excited to welcome Chico States to the bagel fam with this fantastic third record. Hope you enjoy :) This third full-length of encyclopedic Americana shows Joseph Barresi elaborating on his odd merger of personal minutiae and public history. 𝘐 𝘚𝘢𝘸 𝘈 𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘰 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 appears almost Lorca-esque in its take on the hyper-current-meets-the-heriditary. Coming off a few years of heavier performance and a shifting and expanding membership, Chico States’ band shows a pithiness in style and sonic clarity that earlier records hadn’t yet realized, partly due to scale. But here you can feel—in mind and chest—the distance and scary spaciousness of Barresi’s experience of travel through subcultures of the Pacific Coast, France, Aotearoa, Maine, or even along tracks in imaginary locations like Farmington Bay. It’s difficult, and rewarding, to know an artist whose voice confuses you about what’s real and what’s simply interesting. Barresi’s is like that, and this third record gives it a durable body. Like the tongue-and-cheek term “American primitivism” Fahey gave to his guitar music, the terms cosmic Americana or even anti-country become easier ways to understand this music. But the joke is that there is no actual desire to appropriate: in fact, Barresi’s songs are achingly sincere and concerned with real relationships to tradition, place, people, and 2020s gestalt. Folk music, from Roud Ballads to the documents of Appalachia made by Alan Lomax, has always expressed the individual situation in a way others feel inclined to repeat. In recording highly idiosyncratic, personal music borne out of compulsory love for rail systems especially, Chico States permits us to partake in the organized disorientation normally reserved for trainspotters. - Alex Silver
Open meadow of ferns with some degree of perceivable depth, as viewed on a computer screen.
Book cover for Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Dr. Anna Lembke. Text notes that it's a "New York Times Bestseller" and the artwork is warm-colored watercolors resembling the shape of a flower's crown.
Painting of geraniums on a windowsill in high-contrast shadows, black and white. By Anton Gojmir Kos.
Pink geraniums in a window in Vaxholm, Sweden. The house has red wooden siding, white window panes, yellow shutters, and a cemented rock foundation.
Black-and-white, hand-drawn, Legos/comics-themed show poster for Whip Appeal, Ruby Lou, and Chico States at Prism Analog on August 9th, 34 Preble Street, Portland, Maine.
Advertisement for La Kermesse Franco-Americaine Heritage Festival showing a tent and the festival's classic red dining car. The ad is placed on top of the grocery coupons included with the newspaper. The text reads, "Car Show, Parade, Live Music, Fireworks, Food Trucks. June 19, 20, 21, & 22. St. Louis Field. Biddeford, Maine. www.lakermessefestival.com/"
Screenshot from the Schedule page of La Kermesse Festival website. Alex Silver is looking at the camera with a quizzical look while standing in front of blooming yellow flowers on a shrub in spring. The text reads, "Alex Silver, 2:30-4:00 PM, Outdoor Stage. Alex Silver is a contemporary folk singer, accompanying himself on guitar. He is also a French teacher in Saco and a supporter of efforts to preserve Franco-American heritage. Silver plays originals as well as favorites by Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Georges Moustaki."
Flyer for Lily Seabird, Hemlock, The Clearwater Swimmers, and Chico States at The Apohadion Theater in Portland, Maine on June 8th at 7pm, $10 cover. Flyer features a reservoir of water reflecting clouds and a windmill in a blue western sky. The text was created on burnt paper; three matches and a few hand-drawn butterflies sit three-dimensionally upon the picture's surface.
"The La Kermesse float passes on Jefferson Street in Biddeford as riders wave to spectators during a parade kicking off the 36th annual La Kermesse Franco-Americaine Festival. — Staff photo by Derek Davis." This is a quotation from the Portland Press Herald website describing the original photo. The float includes many of the circular emblems for the festival, which include a green frog and the year, as well as "C'est le temps," the motto of La Kermesse.
"Growing up Maine In Concert" featured image from the Kickstarter campaign for Classical Uprising and its program materials. Background of student art in a giant multitudinous grid.
Wabanaki Film Festival flyer, background green with black-and-white movie poster thumbnails, reads: "The PMA in collaboration with Mali Obomsawin and Lokotah Sanborn present: Wabanaki Film Festival, Sunday, May 18th, 2025 @ The Portland Museum of Art. 11:00AM-1:45PM Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance + Q&A and Panel Discussion. 2:45PM-3:30PM Wabanki Short Film Block + Q&A with Filmmakers. 3:30PM-5:00PM Harvest of Empire + Q&A and Panel Discussion. Free Tickets in Bio. Bomazeen Land Trust. Presente! Maine.
Flyer for Lily Seabird, Hemlock, The Clearwater Swimmers, and Chico States at The Apohadion Theater in Portland, Maine on June 8th at 7pm, $10 cover. Flyer features a reservoir of water reflecting clouds and a windmill in a blue western sky. The text was created on burnt paper; three matches and a few hand-drawn butterflies sit three-dimensionally upon the picture's surface.
Visual of "Working Memory Capacity by Smartphone Location" by Alex Silver in reference to the study "Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity" by Adrian F. Ward, Kristen Duke, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten W. Bos, published in 2017 in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
Banal photo of spring emerging in Scarborough, Maine in April 2025. Part of the photo diary of musician Alex Silver.
Student Venn Diagram worksheet showing "My culture," "My friend's culture," and "Similarities" in the middle.
Album cover for Moving Through Light by Daniel Bachman, featuring a fragmented portrait of the artist and light shining through a window.
View of the Punkt. MP02 in my hand, taken from above with reflection of iPhone and my face in "dumbphone" screen, with a background of ornate red rug, radiator, and the partial window.
Database of French-language journalism concerning Maine, collected at mainefr.wordpress.com, April to May 2025.
Album cover for Deux Pianos, a 2000 album by Sylvie Courvoisier and Jacques Demierre of improvised piano pieces.