Los Angeles singer/songwriter Alex Izenberg chases the sweet, reviving magic of songs on “Old Gold,” a buoyant, sun-kissed groove that celebrates music’s power to collapse time, restore wonder, and bring the forgotten parts of ourselves back into the light.

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Stream: “Old Gold” – Alex Izenberg

To me, the best songs don’t necessarily explain life – they accompany it.

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Joy can feel like a second wind when it arrives without force. It doesn’t ask the past to disappear; it lets it loosen, brighten, and carry you somewhere lighter.

Alex Izenberg’s summery “Old Gold” moves with the easy, sunlit grace of an old favorite rediscovered at the exact right hour – buoyant, inviting, and quietly restorative, a song that seems to smile without ever begging us to smile back. The Los Angeles singer/songwriter’s first single for Mexican Summer is a bright, freewheeling pivot from the sweeping atmospheres of 2024’s Alex Izenberg & The Exiles, trading widescreen psych-pop grandeur for something more tactile and immediate: rippling piano, easygoing groove, dulcet vocal melodies, and an irresistible warmth that feels both playful and deeply felt. “That old gold that lets me live again / through moonlight shining over my head,” he sings, turning nostalgia into motion, memory into light, and music itself into a renewable source of wonder.

I’ll go it alone, I’m takin’ the high road
I gave her my soul and she’s singin’ the old gold
Baby truth be told, I’m not takin’ what I’m owed
That old gold that lets me live again
Through moonlight shining over my head
Sing it with me my love…

For Izenberg, songs have always been less like products than portals. His music has long drifted through the smoke trails of Los Angeles’ golden-age fade, steeped in vintage textures, strange beauty, and a devotion to records that feel like entire rooms one can walk into and inhabit.

“I think all I really want people to know is that I’ve devoted my life to trying to make something honest and enduring in a world that moves very quickly,” he tells Atwood Magazine. “My music comes from solitude, longing, beauty, confusion, memory, and the strange experience of being alive at this particular moment in time. I’ve always been drawn to records that feel less like products and more like worlds you can step into, albums that carry atmosphere, mystery, and a human soul inside them. That’s what I’m always chasing in my own work.”

I’m walking the line,
zig zaggin’ my way down
I’m rockin’ to roll and
I’ll tip toe to the highlands
Criss crossin’ my legs,
I ain’t reading the news man
That old gold that lets me live again
Through moonlight
shining over my head
Sing it with me my love

“Old Gold” sounds like that chase with the windows down.

Originally born from a piano riff Izenberg would return to casually for years, the song finally took shape with producer Greg Hartunian as part of a new batch of Mexican Summer singles that lean toward sun-bleached funk, time-tested rhythm, and groove-forward release. “It was originally a riff I would always play while sitting at the piano,” Izenberg says. “For years I would always play it randomly in the studio. Greg and I realized it would make a good song, so for this series of singles we decided to turn it into a song.” That origin story can be heard in the finished track’s natural lift: Nothing feels overworked or stiffened into place. The piano bounces, the melody glides, and Izenberg’s voice carries the whole thing with gentle, offhand radiance.

There is whimsy here, but not weightlessness. “Old Gold” is fun because it feels alive – loose enough to wander, focused enough to stay glowing. Izenberg calls the lyrics “relatively nonsensical,” a stream-of-consciousness approach in keeping with his preference for music that “makes you wonder and think” rather than point directly at a single meaning. That openness is part of the song’s charm. Phrases flicker by like images from a late-night walk, half-memory and half-dream: I’m walking the line, zig zaggin’ my way down / I’m rockin’ to roll and I’ll tip toe to the highlands. Then the refrain returns, clear as moonlight, inviting everyone in: Sing it with me my love. It feels less like instruction than communion, a hand extended from the middle of the song’s golden haze.

I’ll feed my head
With things I want to do
The night is young
But darlin’ be home soon
Words can’t say
What really happened too
Sing it with me my love

“I think a lot of my lyrics come from trying to preserve fleeting feelings and moments before they disappear,” Izenberg reflects. “That line in particular, ‘That old gold that lets me live again / Through moonlight shining over my head’ was really inspired by those nights where you’re alone listening to old records under the moonlight and suddenly time starts collapsing in on itself. Music has this mysterious ability to resurrect parts of ourselves we thought were gone. A song can bring back an entire emotional landscape in seconds, a room, a season, a person, a younger version of yourself. I’ve always been fascinated by that almost spiritual quality music has.”

That old gold that lets me live again
Through moonlight shinin’ over my head
Sing it with me my love

That spiritual quality is what makes “Old Gold” linger beyond its breezy surface.

Izenberg wanted the track to feel “more human and tactile,” something shaped by warmth, depth, dynamics, and atmosphere rather than hyper-modern polish, and the result is a song that invites repeat listens without demanding them. It bops, yes – beautifully – but it also glows with the patient soul of an artist chasing endurance over instant reaction. “To me, the best songs don’t necessarily explain life, they accompany it,” he says. “They become part of someone’s memories, their late-night drives, their solitude, their healing, their longing.”

“Old Gold” does exactly that: It opens the door, lets the air in, and leaves us feeling a little more connected to the strange, shimmering beauty of being alive.

Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Izenberg to step inside the world of “Old Gold” – the piano riff that lingered for years, the old records that collapse time under moonlight, and the patient, human kind of songwriting that lets a feeling live again. Read our interview below, and get lost in the magic, the beauty, and the majesty of a song that turns memory into light.

Sing it with me, my love.

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:: stream/purchase Old Gold here ::

:: connect with Alex Izenberg here ::

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Stream: “Old Gold” – Alex Izenberg

A CONVERSATION WITH ALEX IZENBERG

Alex Izenberg: I think all I really want people to know is that I’ve devoted my life to trying to make something honest and enduring in a world that moves very quickly. My music comes from solitude, longing, beauty, confusion, memory, and the strange experience of being alive at this particular moment in time. I’ve always been drawn to records that feel less like products and more like worlds you can step into, albums that carry atmosphere, mystery, and a human soul inside them. That’s what I’m always chasing in my own work.

Alex Izenberg: My musical north stars have always been artists who created entire emotional worlds rather than just collections of songs. People like Joni Mitchell, Robert Fripp, Brian Wilson, and bands like Pink Floyd, Grizzly Bear, or King Crimson. I’ve always admired artists who were willing to disappear completely into their own vision, even when it wasn’t fashionable or immediately understood. There’s a kind of spiritual courage in that which I find very inspiring. What excites me most about the music I’m making today is that I feel closer than ever to the sound I’ve heard in my head for years, something warmer, more detailed, more human, more timeless. I think as I’ve gotten older, I’ve also become more patient with the process. I’ve realized that great records aren’t rushed into existence, they’re uncovered slowly, through attention, discipline, experimentation, and trust.

Alex Izenberg: I have a complicated but ultimately very affectionate relationship with that record. I’m proud of it because it captured a very specific emotional and spiritual period of my life, and I think there’s a real sincerity and ambition in it that I’ll always respect. At the same time, enough time has passed now that I can hear it with a little more distance and clarity, which every artist eventually experiences with their work. Making new music has taught me more about restraint, texture, dynamics, and trusting my instincts. So while there are things I would approach differently today, I try not to look at older work through the lens of perfectionism. A record is a photograph of your consciousness at a certain moment in time. Once it’s released, it no longer belongs entirely to you anyway, it starts forming relationships with other people and their lives.

Alex Izenberg: It was originally a riff I would always play while sitting at the piano, for years I would always play it randomly in the studio. Greg (my producer) and I realized it would make a good song, so for this series of singles we decided to turn it into a song! Sonically, I also wanted the track to feel more human and tactile. Greg and I spent a lot of time focusing on warmth, depth, dynamics, and atmosphere, trying to make something that felt immersive rather than overly polished or hyper modern. I wanted it to sound good sitting beside the records that shaped me growing up, not just beside contemporary releases.

Alex Izenberg: Thank you, well the lyrics are relatively nonsensical, like my previous work. I don’t really know if it’s about anything in particular. It was more of a stream of consciousness situation while writing the lyrics. I don’t typically like being too on the nose while writing because I don’t listen to music that points directly at something, I prefer music that makes you wonder and think.

Alex Izenberg: I think a lot of my lyrics come from trying to preserve fleeting feelings and moments before they disappear. That line in particular, ‘That old gold that lets me live again / Through moonlight shining over my head’ was really inspired by those nights where you’re alone listening to old records under the moonlight and suddenly time starts collapsing in on itself. Music has this mysterious ability to resurrect parts of ourselves we thought were gone. A song can bring back an entire emotional landscape in seconds, a room, a season, a person, a younger version of yourself. I’ve always been fascinated by that almost spiritual quality music has.

Alex Izenberg: I hope listeners take away a feeling more than a concrete message. More than anything, I hope the song gives people a sense of reflection, warmth, and emotional recognition, that strange feeling of hearing something that seems to articulate an emotion you’ve carried privately for a long time. To me, the best songs don’t necessarily explain life – they accompany it. They become part of someone’s memories, their late-night drives, their solitude, their healing, their longing. If ‘Old Gold’ can make someone feel a little less alone or a little more connected to the beauty and impermanence of their own life, then I feel like it’s done its job. We live in a time where so much music and media feels engineered for instant reaction, and I wanted the song to feel patient, something you can live inside of rather than just consume quickly and move past.

Alex Izenberg: I’ve been listening to A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs, Here in the Pitch by label mate Jessica Pratt, and Air by Sault which is this beautiful orchestral album that sounds more like a soundtrack.

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:: stream/purchase Old Gold here ::

:: connect with Alex Izenberg here ::

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Stream: “Old Gold” – Alex Izenberg

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