{"product_id":"greg-mendez-first-time-alone-vinyl","title":"Greg Mendez - First Time \/ Alone (Vinyl) { vinyl }","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDetails: \u003c\/strong\u003eFirst Time \/ Alone, Greg Mendez's new EP and first release withDead Oceans, came together in late summer and early fall of2023; the songs here appear in the order in which they werewritten, recorded straight to four-track in the small spare roomof his West Philadelphia apartment. It's a four song arc, aspectral passageway, one brief and fluid body of work thathangs together from the mournful opening of \"Mountain DewHell\" to the pitched-up vocals on \"Pain Meds,\" a tiny songfloundering in the enormity of grief. The experience of listeningthrough is like waking up from a half-remembered dream, ashadow in the corner of the room, a strange solitude, a temporalNew York autumn with gray skies and naked trees. But whilethe release is sparse and spontaneous, it's tactile andconsuming, a glimpse into the beautiful, lonely worlds that livein the core of a Greg Mendez song.First Time \/ Alone is the inverse of his 2023 self-titled album, ameticulous and labored-over collection of songs that went on tobecome a surprise slowburn success. Mendez has releasedmusic in various capacities across 15 years living in Philadelphiaand New York, but the self-titled was what propelled him to awider attention, a critical breakthrough on best-of lists fromRolling Stone, Pitchfork, Paste, and more. That forwardmomentum came to a quick halt following an intensive surgeryon his right wrist in the summer of 2023 - a four-monthpurgatory of bad TV, canceled touring, and physical therapyensued, a painful stretch of boredom leaving Mendez unable toplay guitar. \"Mountain Dew Hell\" and \"First Time,\" the funerealA-side of the EP, are time capsules of that fever-dream; \"Alone\"was the first song Mendez wrote once he was able to play guitaragain. Likely none of the songs would have existed as-is ifMendez's right hand hadn't been out of commission, but they'reartful in their directness and simplicity. He initially thought hewould need to refine them, building them out to the same scaleas self-titled, but the more he returned to the work, the more itfelt complete and true as-is.Mendez is an intuitive songwriter, melodies channeled throughether, a storyteller who across his catalog has chronicled vividviolence and instability - a wallet chain to the head, a crackhouse arrest, the misdeeds from addiction that hang aroundlike a ghost of past lives - but it's threaded together with lovesongs, too, with odes to friendship, true dedication, the thingsthat can buoy one through the worst. Mendez has a habit ofnoticing those things, of finding the light, exacting poetry fromeven the bleakest, shit-caked situations. In his songs there is aninnate ability to balance grit with gentleness, cruelties rewrittenthrough preternatural sweetness, a heart thrummingunendingly, confidently, through the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"mysite","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53854776983889,"sku":"656605167213.0","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0967\/6721\/3905\/files\/4376062-3271418.jpg?v=1779703379","url":"https:\/\/vinylgroove.shop\/products\/greg-mendez-first-time-alone-vinyl","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}