Across his career, Shakey Graves—a.k.a. the performance moniker of Austin, Texas-born Alejandro Rose-Garcia—has intentionally created thrilling musical adventures tailored to each fan: burning CDs and putting them in personalized decorated bags; building intricate scavenger hunts that send fansin search of unique tapes; and Bandcamp-exclusive releases.
"The fans and musicians that really resonate with me—and the inexplicable ways that I find things that I like—are usually entirely through randomness and chaos and accident," Rose-Garcia says. "I've always been on this quest to make people feel like my own music is a choose your own adventure."
As Rose-Garcia releases his new Shakey Graves album Movie of the Week—a collection of songs whittled down from epic-length recording sessions—he has devised one of his most innovative musical adventures yet. “For the album release, I’m setting up a website,” he says. “On this website, there will be a way to shuffle a collection of alternate tracks and unique songs from the sessions in seemingly infinite combinations to create new albums.” Thanks to this cutting-edge technology, fans will be able to own this alternate version and do whatever they want with it—giving them control over the destiny of the music.
“Imagination really is the tool,” Rose-Garcia says. “The point is to make and create something yourself. Any way that I can allow people to apply their imagination over my music—and allow them to sculpt it using their own prompts—will let them create something new.”