Alex Somers - Siblings 2 (2LP)

Siblings 2 feels like a quiet room after the projector clicks off. Alex Somers has spent years crafting scores that make scenes breathe, but this companion album to Siblings turns that skill inward. Released on 28 June 2019 on the Sigur Rós imprint Krunk, it arrived the same day as its sibling record and sits right alongside his work with Jónsi & Alex and his scores for Captain Fantastic and Honey Boy. It reads like a diary of textures, a set of fragments that somehow link up into a full story.

Somers has long been a master of tone. If you’ve lived with Riceboy Sleeps or the more shadowed corners of Sigur Rós, you know the palette. Airy strings that seem to hover just above the microphones. Piano that feels close to the keys, so you hear felt and wood as much as notes. Tape hiss used the way a painter uses a wash. Siblings 2 leans into that physicality. You can almost picture him in his Reykjavík workspace, letting loops run until they fray, then nudging them into place. It has the patience of his film work without any of the narrative pressure. No cue sheets, no hit points. Just sound moving in slow arcs.

What makes Siblings 2 stand apart from its companion is the sense of dusk it carries. Where Siblings often glows, this one smolders. Pieces drift in on harmonium and bowed guitar, then curl around a single chord for minutes, letting small timbres do the talking. A glassy synth flicker here, a breath of room tone there. The way he layers acoustic instruments with soft distortion is classic Somers. Nothing flashy, but everything tactile. It rewards volume. Turn it up and the low end opens like a floorboard, revealing little rattles and wooden creaks under the drones.

Context helps. 2019 was a busy year in his world. Jónsi & Alex returned to stages for the 10-year celebration of Riceboy Sleeps, complete with orchestral dates that showed how resilient those early ambient pieces were. Around the same time, the duo released Lost & Found, a surprise collection tied back to that universe. Sitting next to those events, Siblings 2 feels like Somers taking stock of his own voice. He had already co-produced Sigur Rós albums like Valtari and Kveikur, and his film scores were turning heads, but this project strips away collaborators and narrative duties and leaves him alone with his tools.

There is craft in the sequencing. Somers is careful about how quiet gives way to weight. One piece will settle into near silence, then the next lifts with a faint choir-like pad and a piano interval that lands right in the chest. He keeps rhythm mostly implied, but you can sense a pulse in the way textures swell and recede. That implied motion keeps the album from drifting into wallpaper. It’s ambient music that asks you to lean in.

On vinyl, it shines. The noise floor of the format matches the tape beds he loves, and side breaks turn into natural breaths. If you’re the type to browse a Melbourne record store on a Saturday afternoon, this is the record you flip to the back cover, nod, and take to the counter. Siblings 2 vinyl isn’t a trophy piece. It’s a late night companion. If you like to buy Alex Somers records online, look for Krunk’s pressing. It sits nicely next to other Alex Somers albums on vinyl, and it pairs beautifully with Jónsi & Alex if you already have that shelf going. Fans searching for Alex Somers vinyl or even crate diggers hunting through vinyl records Australia will be happy to find this one filed under modern ambient rather than soundtrack.

The best ambient albums create rooms you come back to. Siblings 2 builds a handful of them, each with its own temperature and scent. The rooms are spare but welcoming. A lamp flickers. A piano clicks. Somewhere, a bowed string hums against wood until it feels like breath. Somers doesn’t force catharsis. He offers presence. That may be why the album lingers. You put it on to check out one passage, then notice an hour later that your shoulders have dropped and the house feels different.

If Siblings documented the brighter corners of his archives, Siblings 2 holds the dusky ones. Together they sketch a full picture of an artist who treats sound like light, who trusts time, and who understands that the smallest detail can tilt a mood. It’s a quiet triumph, and a must for anyone building a shelf that values atmosphere and touch as much as melody.