Like the rag-and-bone men of yore, Alex G is a master scavenger: Cobbling together decades’ worth of indie rock into alluring new creations, the Philadelphia singer-songwriter has turned musical bricolage into high art. Born Alexander Giannascoli in Havertown, PA, in 1993, he began recording in his bedroom in high school, steadily building a faithful fan base for his self-released output before signing to Domino in 2015. Yet even the leap to a larger label didn’t affect his intimate, handcrafted sound. His knotty chord progressions echo indie trailblazers like Pavement, Elliott Smith, and Built to Spill, but his unmistakably personal signature lies in his slippery layering and cryptic autobiographical lyrics. He went by the alias (Sandy) Alex G but dropped the parenthetical without further explanation in 2020—as elusive as ever. Whether writing solo or working with his band, Alex G’s music flows: “I’m not actually thinking that much when I’m doing it,” he told Apple Music. Perhaps that’s the source of its deeply intuitive appeal.