{"product_id":"mendez-greg-first-time-alone","title":"Greg Mendez: First Time \/ Alone - 7-INCH SINGLE","description":"\u003cb\u003eTitle: \u003c\/b\u003eFirst Time \/ Alone\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eArtist: \u003c\/b\u003eGreg Mendez\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eLabel: \u003c\/b\u003eDead Oceans\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eProduct Type: \u003c\/b\u003e7-INCH SINGLE\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eUPC: \u003c\/b\u003e656605167213\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eGenre: \u003c\/b\u003eRock\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eRelease Date: \u003c\/b\u003e2024-12-06\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \u003cb\u003eNumber of Discs: \u003c\/b\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \n                                         \u003cbr\u003e\n                                         \n                                         \n                                         First Time \/ Alone, Greg Mendez's new EP and first release with Dead Oceans, came together in late summer and early fall of 2023; the songs here appear in the order in which they were written, recorded straight to four-track in the small spare room of his West Philadelphia apartment. It's a four song arc, aspectral passageway, one brief and fluid body of work that hangs together from the mournful opening of \"Mountain Dew Hell\" to the pitched-up vocals on \"Pain Meds,\" a tiny song floundering in the enormity of grief. The experience of listening through is like waking up from a half-remembered dream, a shadow in the corner of the room, a strange solitude, a temporal New York autumn with gray skies and naked trees. But while the release is sparse and spontaneous, it's tactile and consuming, a glimpse into the beautiful, lonely worlds that live in the core of a Greg Mendez song. First Time \/ Alone is the inverse of his 2023 self-titled album, a meticulous and labored-over collection of songs that went on to become a surprise slowburn success. Mendez has released music in various capacities across 15 years living in Philadelphia and New York, but the self-titled was what propelled him to a wider attention, a critical breakthrough on best-of lists from Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Paste, and more. That forward momentum came to a quick halt following an intensive surgery on his right wrist in the summer of 2023 - a four-month purgatory of bad TV, canceled touring, and physical therapy ensued, a painful stretch of boredom leaving Mendez unable to play 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTracks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1.1 Mountain Dew Hell \u003cbr\u003e1.2 First Time \u003cbr\u003e1.3 Alone \u003cbr\u003e1.4 Pain Meds\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Greg Mendez","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41154321580103,"sku":"44668723","price":11.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2976\/0132\/files\/4376062-3271418.jpg?v=1727608485","url":"https:\/\/tower.com\/products\/mendez-greg-first-time-alone","provider":"Tower Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}