We ask Albert Gold to sum up his music in three words and he says introspective, emotional, groove. Not a slogan, just an accurate read on a catalogue built from songs that sound like they were figured out alone in a room before anyone else heard them.
He started writing at eleven. Not because he wanted to be a musician yet, but because he'd lost a parent and needed somewhere to put it. That's the honest version of how this began, and it's stuck around. Writing turned into something closer to a therapy session over the years, and Gold says he's still working from that same place, trying to understand himself, his relationships, the people around him.
"I want to be vulnerable in my music and make sense of things that I don't always have the answers to."
Directed by Liam Chong (@liamchong)
Two parts of the process stand out to him. One is the sonic side, chords, ideas, building a song up from almost nothing until it becomes a thing that exists. The other is who he makes it with. He singles out director and artist Liam Chong as one of his favourite collaborators, someone who takes what's already there and gives it a pulse.
"Working with him just brings life to my work."
When it comes to advice for other creatives, Gold doesn't pretend to have it figured out. He'll tell you he's still an aspiring creative himself. If there's a method at all, it's smaller than people expect: focus on the work.
Photography by Liam Chong (@liamchong)
His reference points say a lot. Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, Prince's Diamonds and Pearls, Bob Marley's Legend - three records he keeps coming back to, not as background listening but as proof of concept. That emotion, whatever kind it is, can be shaped into something people want to sit with.
"They were able to put their emotions into a song and make something beautiful even if it came from a painful or happy place. I think it was the urge to make that."
Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Massive Attack, that's the lineage he points to when asked what pulled him toward this in the first place. Not the fame or the performance of it, just that specific alchemy of turning a feeling into a song.
Photography by Reuben Yamak (@reubenyamak)
Next up is a new single, then a full project the year after that he's clearly looking forward to talking about more once it's closer. Beyond his own catalogue, he's got his eye on writing for other artists, and maybe eventually directing, something that tracks given how much weight he puts on the visual side of his work already.
On the state of the industry, he's not complaining, he's actually optimistic. He thinks something's shifting, music that refuses to sit inside one genre is starting to get its flowers instead of getting overlooked, and he wants to see more of it.
"I feel like it's happening right now, which I'm so happy about. Music that doesn't fit in a genre being celebrated. I wanna see more of that."
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