Fifteen Minutes of Fame Music Entertainment

Originally Published on December 12th, 2025

~ About the Artist ~

I always feel good about a submission when I see the artist is from Austin, Texas. The live music capital of the world, I assume they’re going to know what they’re doing. It’s kind of silly, really. I mean, I live in Nashville. I know that not every musician is good. I know there are people who have made real commitments to music; who have moved from states, sometimes countries away to chase their dream, and my brutally honest opinion was that they would have probably had greater success staying where they were from. I’m not saying that to be an asshole, or to be pretentious. I’m just making a statement of observation. This town is over saturated with musicians. It’s mostly a good thing- especially if one loves music. But the competition with eat your dreams and leave you with nothing.

I imagine a similar culture in Austin. I know the competition must be incredible. So, I think that’s where my assumptions come from. I believe the submissions are going to do a great job of being self-critical and the passion is going to be there.

Well, in this instance, I am absolutely right. When I pressed play on Is This It? by Alex Wilson, I was taken aback. I take a lot of pride in my ability to hear a snip of some music and I can pretty much gauge where and how it’s going to go. This artist caught me by surprise at every turn.

Wilson, out of (you guessed it) Austin Texas, is a bassist, singer/songwriter, and producer who has spent his career focusing on refining his sound of “Industrial Folk.”

Debuting in 2019, Wilson released the album No Other Option on May 31st of 2019. However, Bandcamp says this was his 4th album? Twelve songs running over an hour, No Other Option hits a few different genres with its aesthetic. It’s chaotic. It’s illogical. It’s entirely unpredictable. The vocals tend to intentionally be off key, but in a way that they’re hinting at finding the note they “should be” on. It really reminds me of the genius of Lily Seabird. I fell in love with Freefall from this album. The way this song was produced is how a musician should do it if their intention is to make a statement. It’s purely instrumental, but it is says so much. Then it transitions smoothly into Stage 5: Happily Ever for a While. At times, No Other Option sounds like it could be a score for a Baz Luhrmann film. It embraces chaos.

The following year, Wilson released his first studio album, The Strength. This 8 song, 50-minute work, starts with the same chaos but altering some of its influence. I Want it All has a hint of NIN influence. It’s interesting because this album was released a year later on Spotify but I can hear how this was produced earlier than No Other Option. The conceptual idea is still there. One Day Sober is particularly brilliant. I also really love Going Nowhere Slowly.

So, as I go through the albums chronologically on Spotify, I see that many of his albums were released on the same day. I am going with this because I think it speaks to the chaotic nature of the artist and his music.

The next album, Koveezee, is the third album, and coincidentally, Wilson’s third album released. The opening song, the title track, brings yet another new element to Wilson’s dynamic and diverse capabilities. It has the structural complexities of Morning Mr. Magpie from Radiohead’s The King of Limbs album. The rhythm is all over the place, but keeps time. It’s just really busy. It’s very interesting.

We actually don’t hear vocals until the third song, Slow Motion. If Wilson were to have a song that could classify as a ballad, this would be it. I hear production elements in this one that remind me of Childish Gambino’s song Dadvocate from Bando Stone and the New World.

Honestly, this album doesn’t stop experimenting. As we continue, The Horsefarmer’s Daughter comes in next. An instrumental, with a fiddle played as the lead, and the song sounds like a folk song from the romantic period. It keeps its weird aesthetic as well, intentionally ignoring rhythm and tempo in places but, just like the vocals, does it in a way that sounds intentional. It constantly keeps me leaning in. Koveezee, to this point, is my favorite album of Wilson’s.

Wilson performed on an EP by the band called Waxwyng and produced the EP called From the Ashes. Then, he produced music for the web series Falling Apart. His next studio album à la Spotify is his second album, Tears in Rain. This album begins with a very beautiful instrumental, Overture. The title track is an anthemic piece that transitions from Overture. Then, we have Goblins and Ghouls that sounds nothing less than the product of some insanely good weed. This song experiments on its own experimentation. It may his most chaotic piece of music yet.

I love the song Across Time. There is this desperation that trickles into the music and it’s sort of melancholic. I love the use of the vocoder, as Wilson uses it in a way that is unique (as expected). I also love the experimentation in Escape. He exhibits a phenomenal tenacity for his production style. I can’t imagine this was done quickly. It is so detail-oriented. There are a lot of layers that must work hard to work well and these elements work well.

Wilson’s fifth studio album, Whiskey River (and other love songs) was released in August of 2020. Yet again, he is unafraid of diversity as this release is his interpretations of varying old country love songs from Randy Travis to Conway Twitty.

~ About the Album ~

Is This It? is the 6th studio album by Alex Wilson. Releasing on December 4th, 2025, it runs at 48 minutes and consists of 8 tracks. Point of order: the album is currently available on Bandcamp as a “pay what you want” digital download.

Is This It? is written and performed by Wilson. There is a cover of Come Sail Away, which writing credit would go to the Styx. It also features Garrett Gonzalez on guitar, Jason Stevens on vocals, and Scott Mason on rap vocals.

The albums opener, Mustard Sandwiches exhibits a return to the more infused electronics of some of Wilson’s earlier work.

The title track starts with experimentation over samples before transitioning into the rap vocal performance by Mason. The production feels crazy, in a good way. It’s like a person trying to walk but the gravity to the world keeps getting turned on and off. That element of chaos fits so well into the narrative of the song and album.

I love the song How Long Have You Stopped Loving Me? It sounds like taking a sample from history and introducing it to progress. The organ, harmonica, and vocoder all complement each other so well. It is an incredible musical partnership.

Intertwined is really interesting. It actually reminds me of another band I’ve recently reviewed, Golem Pink. It incorporates an element of weird that sounds like it has the potential to change music. Like much of the Wilson’s work, he implies an understanding of the rules of music theory and compulsive habit of ignoring them, with intention. I think it’s brilliantly done.

Thousands of Lights is another very strong song. It is introduced with a twangy banjo solo. As it progresses, the banjo is joined by a synth, and an acoustic guitar. It flows between the solo organics and the synth throughout the remainder of the song. As an instrumental, I think it gives the listener this calming feeling as they approach the end of the album.

~ Final Thoughts ~

After listening to the catalog of Alex Wilson, I think what impresses me the most is his abilities with production. With every album, he shows an ability to excel across a plane of various genres. He’s not afraid to experiment, and he’s able to incorporate his own style and method into these different areas.

The instrumentation is also very good. I think the musicians are particularly talented in that, there really appears to be a sense of changing a culture of music altogether. I hear a sense of wanting to avoid replicating the formula of songwriting. Even to the point of doing it with the intent of breaking some of the rules just enough to notice the rule’s been broken, without abandoning the concept altogether. A push in the time signature, an unorthodox note or progression that still fits within the key or melody.

I think he does the same thing with his vocals. I don’t know if the vocal work is intentional or not, but there seems to be this theme of flirting with staying on key. He’s not ever entirely off. It is always right there, and it seems to be done in a way that he knows what he’s doing. This not only happens with the melody, but the harmony as well. It’s very coordinated. It could be done as a means to conceal the fact that he might not be the strongest of vocalists. I could be done as a means of wanting to do what I mentioned above; to change the culture of popular music by way of reshaping songwriting. I think, intentional or not, he’s found something that works, something that’s different, and something that’s progressive. It reminds me so much of what I heard with Lily Seabird earlier this year with her album Trash Mountain, and that album really resonated with me. Seabird was one of my top 5 artists on Spotify this year, if that says anything about how capable I think this method of songwriting can be.

I think Alex Wilson’s music is chaotic, if I had to limit it to just one word. I mean that in the best of ways as I possibly could. I don’t think we want to listen to music that doesn’t represent a bit of chaos. Afterall, we live in a chaotic world and, in doing so, introducing a bit of chaos can be soothing.

Go press play.