Music
From the early days of Australian hip hop - singing, rapping and playing guitar in the band Good Buddha - Alex Young has performed and recorded with a wide range of musicians and projects. He was guitarist/backing vocalist for the SPACE INVADAS live band, playing major festivals such as Future Music and Splendour in the Grass; he was selected as one of six guitarists to perform with Jim Moginie’s Electric Guitar Orchestra; he makes up half of boom-bap soul duo IL COMBO, and goes leftfield as electro artist A-WYRE.
A-WYRE
A-WYRE'S music is like stepping out of a U.F.O. and walking down a dark country road to arrive at a futuristic city, where you walk into a strangely familiar bar, which has a rocking live band playing funky electro soul. The sonic forces of boom bap hip hop are woven into the fabric of the beats, while swirling vocal melodies add sweet harmonic layers to the music.
A-Wyre's latest record is a collection of songs that explore a post-apocalyptic world, where isolation is the norm and memories are all we have. At times dark, mixed with a wistful melancholia, bursting with modern soulful arrangements and live/electronic crossovers, the mini album 'A Distant City' has a truly unique sound.
IL COMBO
Former Good Buddha bandmates Alex Young and Sandro Bonnano combine forces to create the stylish sounds of IL COMBO, exploring electronic audio manipulation through loops, samples and live performances. While Sandro draws inspiration from 1980-90’s era drum machines, samplers, electronics and the aesthetics of Golden Era hip hop production, Alex provides multi-layered vocals, lyrics and live guitar.
Their debut album ‘Deeper’ was released in 2018 and met with by sold out live performances at the South-by-South Coast festival (May, 2018) and Lazybones, Marrickville (June, 2018), which led to their selection for the album ‘The Nature Vol. 1’ on German label Tokyo Dawn Records, showcasing modern Australian explorations in Neo Soul/Hip Hop. Their latest double A-side release ‘Keep On/Make it Better’ is due for release in September 2024.
jim moginie’s electric guitar orchestra
Alex was selected as one of six guitarists to perform the compositions of Jim Moginie’s (Midnight Oil) ‘Colour Wheel’, which attempts to explore the synesthetic connection between music and colour. Live performances at MONA FOMA and the Opera House Studio among others have culminated in a live album of the ‘Colour Wheel’ being produced, which was released commercially in early 2016. Their most recent performance transformed the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne.
GOOD BUDDHA
“…Young and his GOOD BUDDHA cohorts (were) hardly your average hip-hop crew. From the funk-flecked breaks of their 2001 debut, Skillathon, to its soul-seared 2004 follow-up Futurhistrix, the group's aesthetic has echoed with the unerring flavours of epochs and parties past.”
Dan Rule, SMH 2008