Alena Spanger / CrossLegged / Nathan Bajar - sounds by amani

Alena Spanger

A striking vocalist whose melodies trace mercurial and richly emotive trajectories, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Alena Spanger’s debut album Fire Escape—out now via Ruination Record Co.—is a richly varied collection of songs workshopped in the half-decade since her revered band Tiny Hazard’s breakup. Spanger’s compositions combine fractured beauty with mischievous play. Operating in a space between concrete expression and pre-verbal murmurs, she offsets sharp hooks with unsettling gestures—deliberate pressure at the top of her range, gasps, and scrambled electronics.

CrossLegged

Born in Norristown, PA and raised between Pennsylvania and California, Keba’s musical inspirations span folk, experimental pop, post punk, indie rock and soul. She grew up in a Jamaican household where the sounds that filled the air ran the gamut of roots reggae acts like Burning Spear and Third World and singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s like Carole King and The Mamas and the Papas, which developed her original…