“Instant Sex” by Indie Pop Sensation Rob Alexander

Lust can shape a song and its narrative in so many different ways, and in his new single “Instant Sex,” indie pop singer/songwriter Rob Alexander does his best to exhaust them all – all while giving us a trademark top-notch performance. Alexander’s control of the rhythm is rivaled only by the ease with which he delivers the lyrics to us in this track, and though I’ve been a fan of his music for a few years now, there’s no denying that the approach he’s taken to this latest release is one steeped in experimentation and a gamble which comes only through doing something daringly original. 

The guitar parts here sting pretty hard, but they’re so tonally pleasing that they never have to be particularly loud to make a statement in the big picture of the song. From the moment that Alexander starts to sing forward, we’re splitting our focus between the boisterousness of his lyricism and the quiet cool of the instrumental elements in the backdrop, as opposed to being directed towards one star feature exclusively. There’s a lot to be unboxed in this performance, and because of the meticulousness of the mix and the showman at the helm of the project, we can take our time appreciating every intricacy for its own decadence. 

KKBOX: https://www.kkbox.com/sg/en/song/C2100CpG3DMJzT.SJzT.S0XL-index.html

There’s not a lot of spacing between the bassline and the drums in “Instant Sex,” and while this is a different angle than a lot of other players would have taken with a similarly designed composition, I think it does a lot to emphasize the intimacy Alexander wants to enforce with the music. He could have relied on his words alone, as the status quo would call for, but being that this is another chance for him to set his sound apart from the rest, I like that he took full advantage of the opportunity and didn’t give us something halfhearted. 

I’ve spent a lot of time spinning Dream out Loud in the last couple of months, and I don’t know that there’s any debating whether or not this song is the most physical of any included in the tracklist. There’s just so much of Rob Alexander’s voice in the groove here, and yet there’s scarcely a moment in which he sounds all that domineering over his bandmates (frankly, quite the opposite is true), allowing for this to feel theatrical but completely devoid of the camp and careless excesses common in ambitious numbers like “Instant Sex.” 

It’s easy to understand why critics like myself have come to expect so much out of the music Rob Alexander makes when listening to a single like this one, and though he’s been as consistent as any of the elites in the south Florida music scene over the past three years, there’s enough in “Instant Sex” to hint at experimental goals he’s only begun to scratch the surface on. I for one really want to see him reach as far for those goals as he can, and if this is a jumping-off point, we’re in for pure audio gold in the future. 

Michael Rand