Alexa Dexa

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Alexa Dexa is a multifaceted artist with footholds in composition, electronic sound design, and performance. Her toychestral electronic pop solo project parades her floating vocals, handcrafted soundscapes, and enough instruments made with children in mind to rival a playpen. Among her growing collection are her beloved toy pianos, pitched desk bells, and typatune.

An adventurer at heart, Alexa spends 4-6 months out of the year touring the world with a strong do-it-yourself ethos. Her 12 previous self-booked tour itineraries over the past 5 years have taken her throughout North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. With a 40 liter Deuter backpack, 7 of her desk bells, her smallest 18-key Schoenhut baby grand toy piano, and an iPhone housing her beats, Alexa traverses the map with ease, heavily favoring use of public transportation. Her festival appearances include Omaha’s BFF Femme Fest (2017), New Zealand’s Future City Festival (2017), Croatia’s Fairy Tale Festival (2016), the Florida International Toy Piano Festival (2016), Burning Man (2015), Germany’s Fusion Festival (2014), NYC’s UnCaged Toy Piano Festival (2013 & 2017) curated by toy piano legends Margaret Leng Tan and Phyllis Chen, Detroit’s Sidewalk Festival of Performing Arts (2013-2015) for which Alexa created and performed with site-specific sound installations including her Living Sound Library, and Make Music New York (2010-2017), for which Alexa composed and organized mass appeal performances for toy piano and theremini. Alexa handles all of her own booking and tour planning.

A graduate of Berklee College of Music (2011), member of the Schoenhut Artist Roster, and volunteer artist for Sing for Hope, Alexa is known for the duality between the innate childish affability of her toys and the maturity of her lyrical content and compositional means. She was awarded the 2015 Creative Individuals Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts for her most recent album “Year of Abandon” and a 2014 Puffin Foundation grant for her activist album “Whale Bones and the Boundary of a Fish”. Her discography includes 3 full-length albums, 2 conceptual micro-albums, and 2 soundtracks for site-specific performance and theater. Alexa’s ongoing projects include Chorale Corral: A Living Sound Library, a collection of found objects that invite public participation in cataloguing and fulfilling their potential as sound-makers, and Culture Culture: Cultivated Samples, a collection of field recordings taken from her tour travels that frame society through sound. She also leads a workshop on “Pursuing Indie Music Professionally” for Long Island high school students through the BOCES Arts-in-Education program. Her past projects include taking on the capacity of Sound Designer for the Off-Off-Broadway production of “Someone’s Trying to Kill Me” at NYC’s HERE theater (2011).

Rawhide Records is Alexa Dexa’s humble recording studio on Long Island. It is where she records all of her albums, as well as the albums of other musicians for whom she acts as an audio engineer and producer. Her beat-making workstation also resides there. With the aid of her Oxygen 49 keyboard, Alexa architects aural surroundings using Digital Performer, Logic, Reason, & sample libraries from Native Instruments. Contact Alexa to book studio time or inquire about purchasing a custom beat.

Dexa is Alexa’s middle name, after her paternal granny. Always a playful girl enchanted with miniatures and sonically drawn to resonant bell tones, it is not much of a surprise that upon first discovering the realm of toy instruments, Alexa fell head over heels instantly and immediately began to seek out the toys she now uses to self-accompany and that continue to shape the contours of her compositions and musical sensibilities.

Steve Smith, The New York Times “Examples of pure charm and whimsy came in a six-song set by Alexa Dexa, who accompanied her hearty, flexible voice with toy piano, desk bells and other gadgets.”

Phyllis Chen, I Care If You Listen “What [Alexa Dexa] does is really special and adds another perspective to the toy piano.”

Sean Zearfoss, Creative Loafing Atlanta “There is little that’s conventional about Alexa Dexa. She’s self-booked, self-recorded, and self-promoted. Her tours cost as little as $36 to complete. Unarguably, she personifies DIY for the millennium.”

Jeff Milo, Playground Detroit “Alexa Dexa’s musical manifestations evoke a dream-like quality. The way she renders a familiarity to strangeness with the tones she tills from her ‘toychestra,’ can cause an imagery of the innocent, the impossible, and the sublime.”

Philippe Perez, The Taleteller Podcast “[Alexa Dexa’s] music is a wonderful combination of oddness and beauty, which makes for a curious listening experience.”

Dingus “WHILE MUCH OF a symphony of band-aids for the visionary wound IS SCORED OUT ON TOY INSTRUMENTS, THE THOUGHT PROCESS IS THAT OF ANY MAJOR ALBUM RELEASE. TOPPED OFF BY THE POWERFUL VOICE OF ALEXA DEXA, THIS IS AN ALBUM THAT CANNOT BE GRASPED FULLY UPON FIRST LISTEN AND IS SURELY FOR THE SELECTIVE AND INTROSPECTIVE.”

Anna Chandler, Connect Savannah “The way tinny keys plunk over ambient electronic layers feels like being wrapped up in a jazz club music box: Dexa’s a marvelous vocalist, boasting a velvety, jazz-styled croon that meanders, wavers, and pushes itself to warm lilts. Don’t come expecting precious twee-pop: there’s a brooding underbelly set to sensual beats and reflective lyrics.”

Tim McMahan, The Reader “An altogether unique musical / performance art experience with the charm of early Purity Ring or Bjork crossed with Philip Glass but played on tiny toy instruments.”

Schoenhut Piano Company “There are many words to describe the multifaceted toychestra composer and electronic sound designer, Alexa Dexa. But the first thing that comes to our mind is: Little piano, huge talent.”

Ian Anthony Aiello, Live at O’Leaver’s Alexa Dexa‘s massive and soaring productions are brought back to earth by tiny instruments. With a huge vocal range that navigates descriptors like pop diva, indie songstress and veteran soul singer, Alexa manages to blend several genres into one. Hers. Electrifying and and lyrically brutal, add her to your “Angrily Walking Home Past The Old House You Shared With Ex” playlist.

WMSE Music News “New York resident Alexa Dexa takes a unique approach on soulful pop and dance ditties. A childlike sensibility adds an air of playfulness to Dexa’s already playful music and spirit.”

Nigel Newton of Skinny Cooks “[Year of Abandon] has a rather unique appeal, with beats that groove and synths that move, punctuated by deliciously arranged, perfectly noisy toys, all dancing beneath [Alexa’s] soul-suede voice.”

William Helms, The Joy of Violent Movement “Her material struck me and captured my attention – it was eerie and ethereal in a way that I hadn’t quite heard before and Alexa Dexa’s voice was amazing. It seemed to be a uniquely singular and oddly childish artistic vision.”

Leah Pape, Common Courtesy Collective “Playing a Schoenhut toy piano, atop which sit a set of those little colored concierge desk-style bells, has her seated humbly before you on the floor, but her powerful voice and dance-worthy beats (played through her iPhone) lift her up to meet everyone’s attention.”

Isthmus, Newspaper “With a barrage of toy instruments (bike bell, seed-pod shaker, baby rattle), a whimsical approach and powerful pipes, Dexa’s electro-pop illustrates why the verb that goes with “music” is “play.””

Erika Delgado, The Bay Abridged “Creative, emotionally real, colorful, and unique.”

SPARKBOOM “Her inventive creativity is what makes Alexa stand out in the areas of music, performance, and visual art as she blends these boundaries so seamlessly.”

Z., Hipster, Please! “Something about Alexa Dexa’s voice made me question every decision I’ve ever made. And I could listen to it forever.”

William Helms, The Joy of Violent Movement “Musically Alexa’s childlike air is quite deceptive because her material covers more adult territory – with its eerie, minimalist feel, she croons and coos seductively while simultaneously sounding as though she were a woman teetering on the tightrope of her own sanity.”

Bruce “Allone” Pandolfo “Alexa has the special and unique capability to be invitingly vulnerable with her voice while simultaneously intimating strength and command. It is a complexity she controls deftly and appropriately, using her talent only when an idea asks it of her, never unnecessarily boastfully, yet still we are always impressed.”

William Helms, The Joy of Violent Movement “The ‘Leave’ official video continues the young singer/songwriter’s reputation for striking dichotomy, evoking a dream-like logic which helps further heighten the song’s ethereal, fever-dream like feel.”

Jason Fitzgerald, Backstage “[Someone’s Trying To Kill Me] is disorienting and at times frightening, as Alexa Dexa’s elaborate sound design creates the sense that something is about to leap out of every corner.”