ALEX THE ASTRONAUT ‘How To Grow A Sunflower Underwater’ New Album From Musician and Storyteller Out Today

Singer, songwriter and storyteller ALEX THE ASTRONAUT shares her second album How to Grow A Sunflower Underwater, out today via Nettwerk. The new album reinforces Alex’s graceful ability to merge the playful with the profound as she documents the complexities of life, her strength as a songwriter magnified by her sense of empathy and embracing a new level of emotional transparency. The album features previous singles “Octopus,” the gloriously anthemic track inspired by her shift in self-perception brought on by her recent Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis; the sublimely devastating yet hopeful “Airport”; and her rumination on the kind of life uncertainty that is worldview-shifting, “Growing Up”; and “Haircut,”  which celebrates personal growth and the journey of self-discovery with your friends.

Listen to How to Grow A Sunflower Underwater here: http://lnk.to/HTGASU.  

Today, Alex the Astronaut also shares her latest single, the heart-wrenching album closer “Ride My Bike” about reckoning with the end of a relationship, and how you can move forward with what you’ve learnt from someone else. “It’s also about hating the gym, riding your bike, and trying to do a lot of different exercise and activities to try and distract yourself from a breakup,” Alex the Astronaut shares. The track is accompanied by a beguiling video clip, with footage Alex shot on a drone in picturesque Iceland, Copenhagen, London and the famous Brighton Pier in England, before coming home to Eora/Sydney, to ride her bike with her friends and loved ones down in Gordon’s Bay – the same place she started snorkelling during the pandemic which inspired many themes on the album, including “Octopus.”

Watch the video for “Ride My Bike” here: https://youtu.be/a71-6YbZGdo.

How to Grow A Sunflower Underwater is an intimate exploration of post-traumatic growth, and a body of work affirming Alex as a truly essential songwriter, capable of transforming the way we view ourselves and the world around us. The album documents both the seemingly mundane (a haircut, a therapy session, a trip to the beach and the supermarket) and utterly life-changing moments (her experience as a caretaker and the PTSD that followed, her recent autism spectrum diagnosis) imbuing her songs with equal parts awareness and sensitivity, imagination and idiosyncratic humour.

Mixed by Miro Mackie (St. Vincent, Dirty Projectors) and produced by Alex the Astronaut with Sam Cromack, Daniel Hanson, and Dean Hanson of Brisbane band Ball Park Music, How to Grow A Sunflower Underwaterbrings her intensely personal storytelling to a kaleidoscopic form of folk/indie-pop. Alex hopes with the release of How to Grow A Sunflower Underwater, her self-reflection might inspire listeners to open up and re-examine how they connect with others.

Alex the Astronaut has captured hearts and fans around the globe, including media support from  The New York Times, NPR Music, BBC Radio 1, triple j, The Guardian, The Line of Best Fit, and much more. She was also named to the prestigious Out 100 list in 2020 for her work in support of LGBTQ+ issues. How to Grow A Sunflower Underwater is the follow up to Alex The Astronaut’s critically acclaimed 2020 debut album The Theory of Absolutely Nothing which was named “a work of genius” by NME and included as an Honourable Mention in Rolling Stone Australia’s Top 200 Australian Albums of All Time.

‘HOW TO GROW A SUNFLOWER UNDERWATER’ TRACK LIST

1. Growing Up

2. Haunted

3. Octopus

4. Airport

5. Sick

6. South London

7. Ride My Bike

8. To Be Something Good

9. Northern Lights

10. Haircut