Buy a print copy of the (Sandy) Alex G issue of The FADER, and order a poster of his cover here.

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There is an elusive, sacred sweet spot between sober and shitfaced when lining up a pool shot feels almost euphoric. Right now, Alex Giannascoli and I aren’t there quite yet.

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We’re playing a doubles match against two tipsy, smiley men named Oliver and Manuel; Alex has yet to sink a ball, and despite making a couple of decent shots, I somehow manage to knock the eight in out of turn, losing us the game.

“Sometimes I feel like I miss on purpose or something,” Alex says. “Like, how could I get that close, that often?”

It’s 6 p.m. on a Friday, and we’re inside a deserted Brooklyn dive with sooty walls and dull red lights. Alex — the 26-year-old singer, songwriter, bandleader, pitch-shift enthusiast, poet, session guitarist, book-lover, son, friend, brother, boyfriend, and aspiring pool shark better known as (Sandy) Alex G — is in New York for a few days to put some final touches on his new album House of Sugar, a haunted-feeling collection of off-kilter Americana. I’m here to talk to him about the music, but at the moment, he appears more focused on refining his pool stroke — something he has been doing a lot back in Philadelphia, where he shares an apartment with his girlfriend and collaborator Molly Germer, a classically trained violinist.

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“I wouldn’t call myself ‘good,’ but I love this game,” he tells me.

