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 fans in 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.”
