[Cover photo credit to Alvaro Masa]

George Alley is a Philadelphia-based multimedia artist who works as a composer, performer, professor, and more. Alley previously announced the news of a self-titled debut album. A planned string of live shows and DJ sets will follow in September. The single “Summer Trophies” is out now, alongside a video.

Upon announcing the album, he explained:

I was born being obsessed with all kinds of music from the Punk songs I write about as a journalist and professor, to the pop songs I grew up listening to while auditioning for the New Mickey Mouse Club, to the dance music I have been hearing in clubs from New York to Berlin. This is the album I’ve always wanted to make.

Talking about “Summer Trophies“, Alley says:

Summer Trophies was one of the first two songs I released ten years ago. When it was first released, it paid for my trip to California and my Lumix camera I still use. I wanted an end of summer song. My own “Boys of Summer” and used that end of summer nostalgia metaphor for life in a larger lens. I had performed this song live a few times with violinist Russel Kotcher and Cellist Eric Coyne. It inspired this new version which was one of the first things Ian Romer and I recorded. We started from scratch changing the tempo and Ian recorded an amazing acoustic guitar solo.

Alley will be releasing his self-titled debut album this Spring. Produced by Ian Romer with additional production from Frank Musarra, it also features musical contributions from Norma Alley (vocals), Eric Coyne (cello), Sasha Ki (violin, viola), Russel Kotchner (violin), Jack Reilly (drums), Alec Spiegelman (saxophone), and Branson Yeast (cello).

To accompany this release, a five-song concert has been filmed and will be released along with three music videos. A collectible run of 500 “transparent root beer” colored albums pressed by vinyl engineers Gottagroove in Cleveland are in the works.