Our friend Alejandro Cohen shares fives favorites in celebration of his new album Chamber of Tears.

Followers of this site will most likely know Alejandro Cohen as the longtime executive director of non-profit radio station dublab. Pillars of the Los Angeles underground, Ale and crew have worked tirelessly over the last two-plus-decades supporting independent music communities through their singular programming.

When he’s not at dublab lifting up other creatives, Ale can most likely be found in his home studio working on his own creative practice. A composer and multi-instrumentalist, Ale has steadily released music over the years through a number of cult favorite projects including his early ’00s left-field ambient group Languis, Pharoahs, a balearic worldbeat band with Samuel Cooper, Stellar Rahim and Diego Herrera (Suzanne Kraft), Trans-Pacific pop duo Psychic Powers, and his solo project Café Ale. We’ve recently been jamming Languis’ If We Never Make It Back and Pharoahs’ remix of BAR’s “Anjali Reverse.”

Later this week, Ale will be releasing his first solo album under his given name. Highly recommended for fans of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Gastr del Sol, Mark Robinson, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Woo, and Caetano Veloso, Chamber of Tears is perhaps Ale’s most delicate and intimate work. Stripping away the electronics and synthesizers of his previous works and focusing instead on the acoustic guitar, Ale presents a stunningly beautiful collection of modern classical compositions that blend the innocently approachable charm of Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Cafe Orchestra with the seaport breeze of Buenos Aires. In many ways, the music is informed by the melody-driven folk music of Ale’s Argentinian roots. To dive deeper into some of the sounds, we highly recommend checking out Ale’s Proyeccion Folklórica mix on Test Pressing.

Chamber of Tears is out this Friday, September 6th via Geographic North. To celebrate the release, Ale shared five influences that shaped the sound of the album.

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Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Telephone and Rubber Band (1981)

“This song has been part of my life since I was a kid, as this was used as the theme song for a public access TV in the 80s. The song always intrigued me and years later I found out who it belonged to.”

Elizabeth Cotten – Freight Train (1957)

“Really anything by Elizabeth Cotten could be listed as one of my favorite songs. She is definitely a big influence on the album Chamber of Tears. I like her playing and the simplicity within the complexity of elements that with the change of one note, it can evoke so much.”

Maurice Deebank – Study No 1 (1984)

“He is a true architect of sound. The perfect blend to me of classical and punk. Maurice Deebank builds universes within each composition. His playing is another reason why I play guitar up to this day.”

Astor Piazzola – Adios Nonino (1989)

“As much as I’d like to think that Tango and especially the melodies of Astor Piazzola are not part of me, there is something in the melancholy and sensibility that inhabits my way of composing music. Being from Buenos Aires, I thought Tango was not part of me as I rejected it as a kid, but I suppose there is some of that in me after all.”

Laurie Anderson – Born, Never Asked (1981)

“I have been obsessed with Laurie Anderson ever since I was 12 or so. This song was played on an old cable music channel back in 87/88 and it formed my taste and understanding of production values. This song has it all, the melody, the intrigue, the rhythm, and of course, her voice. “