Discography
Solo
Three Parts - 2006 - Worthy Records - CDr
Night Map - 2006 - Benbecula Records - CD
Red Walk - 2007 - Drifting Falling - CD
Static Traps - 2008 - Benbecula Records - CD
Cluny to the Sea - 2008 - Distance Recordings - Digital
Partick Car Lights - 2008 - Benbecula Records - CD
Dawn Chorus - 2009 - Distance Recordings - Digital
Singing Sand - 2009 - At War With False Noise - Cassette
Festive - 2009 - Self-release - CDr
Defuse You - 2009 - Self-release - CDr
Future Overtones - 2010 - Apollolaan Recordings - CD
Breezes in the Abyss - 2011 - Macrowhisker (own label) - Cassette + Digital
Breathing Tone - 2012 - Macrowhisker- USB card + Digital
Low Summer Sunlight On Water - 2012 - Macrowhisker - LP + Digital
Sarah's Room (OST) - 2014 - Macrowhisker/Kaleido-dog Records - CD + Digital
Somewhere in Between - 2015 - Macrowhisker - Digital
Autumn - 2016 - Macrowhisker - Digital
Self Titled - 2017 - Macrowhisker - CD + Digital
Subtle Oblivion - 2019 - Macrowhisker - Digital
Collaboration
AC/AC (Alec Cheer + Alistair Crosbie) - Standard Procedure in the Hours of Darkness - 2007 - Lefthand Pressings - CDr
Rain-cloud (Alec Cheer + Dom Dixon) - Rain-cloud - 2007 - Benbecula Records - CD
AC/AC (Alec Cheer + Alistair Crosbie) - No Monsters - 2009 - Lefthand Pressings - CDr
Rain-cloud - Kerala - 2009 - Under the Spire - CD
Press
Norman Records on Street Wondering Memory Recall
"This a gorgeous CD full to the brim of solo guitar explorations and heart rending drones. I like the way they’ve married the two - you get a bit of drone then a wondrous spacial guitar instrumental. The guitar is acoustic and full of lovely rolling chords, kind of down your John Fahey path, rural folk. ‘Summer Brainwash’ is my favourite tune, its the sound of summer afternoons in meadows when you were a child. Sun dappled acoustic picking that is almost meditative sending you off into a mood of pastoral bliss. Only 150 of these buggers so you better be quick."
Autres Directions on Breathing Tone (Translated from french)
"Worlds asleep, golden curls. Height of technology, the new album from Scottish Alec Cheer is a USB key. If the choice of format déroutera the most discerning collectors, however, specify that the object in question does not depart from the pictorial aesthetic that has hitherto been the beauty of Cheer pockets and his side projects - Rain-Cloud in particular. Of the infinitesimal born here his most ambitious work to date: Breathing Tone superb collection of ambient pieces firmly, collects no less than three forty music mainly dedicated to listening level. Can legitimately speak of performance and time stolen. Alex Cheer is however a regular decline fluffy. His music is one of the finest and craft either. Night and Static Map Traps and two of his early records, they already sounded like a journey to the center of intimacy. Sharp melodic twists highly dreamy and melancholy. His work undoubtedly form an excellent introduction to the particular world of abstraction. It will obviously have the night ahead to appreciate the detail of the textures and moving, if we mean certainly less guitar and folk accents into the infinity of Breathing Tone, however, we perceive a little better what makes especially if the report qu'entretiennent loners with the music itself. There is something here that is as much as the refuge of the prison. It is a music that runs beautifully round."
Norman Records on Future Overtones
"Ah, some excellent summer vibes flowing from the speakers courtesy of Glasgow-based artist and musician Alec Cheer. These are solo guitar recordings that range from pure stripped back acoustic playing through to more textured soundscapes, drones and ambient guitar vibes. Lovely stuff and a great soundtrack to staring into the bright blue summer sky on a hazy summers evening, with a cold one in hand. Hand numbered edition of 50 copies in unique painted and stamped sleeve with wraparound cover."
Wire Magazine on AC/AC (Alistair Crosbie + Alec Cheer) No Monsters
"Field recordings and shortwave radio generate grainy clouds, seeded with piano and acoustic guitar. The sense of purpose and patience makes it clear Crosbie and Cheer are not simply approaching drone as a form of stasis but are dedicated to the long view, luxuriating in slowly unfolding ideas. As JG Ballard was able to look at a snapshot of a reclining nude and, in his imagination, elongate the soft surfaces into a rolling desert landscape, so you get the impression that these sonic vistas could be the perfect pop song strectched out into sublime perspective."
Earlabs on Cluny to The Sea
"At EARlabs we do not often write about pop and folk music. Our experience is not really on a high level in that field of music. Though, for Cluny To The Sea by the Scottish musician Cheer we make an exception. This because Cheer knows to combine these two genres with a more experimental approach.
Cheer is the project of musician Alec Cheer who has so far released 2 albums on Benbecula Records. Cluny To The Sea is his first recording for Distance Recordings recorded live to minidisc with no overdubs, while on holiday in a small fishing village in the north of Scotland.
On this release Cheer plays guitar and some random objects to create small loops. Most of the songs are solely based on loops building and layering up. Nowhere the songs stay on a nice path, showing no dynamic outbursts or strange drifts of experimentalism. The music Cheer creates doesn't need that. For some songs, though, he seems to make a small exception. The guitar is sometimes used to create soft droning sounds or a violin is setup to slightly disturb the whole scene. These moments give that small twist to this album that is needed to keep everything interesting enough to keep turning back for more.
Cluny To The Sea has become a nice album that fits very well on a sunny afternoon in the garden drifting away in a daydream. Don't hesitate to get this release and put it on your ipod."
Wire Magazine on Static Traps
"Glaswegian Alex Cheer's contribution to the Benbecula label's monthly Minerals series of releases is a beguiling collection of chiming guitar instrumentals and drifting half-melodies channelled through fuzzy drone soundscapes and benign electronic ruptures. Cheer's bareboned guitar style is a kind of post-electronica folk picking, where clarity gives way to Ambient noise or collides gently with fluttering tape manipulation and processed found sound. Certain tracks fall clearly in one camp or the other; either melodic neo-folk pieces or sparser, drifting tonal workouts. But Cheer is also able to deftly navigate between the two, sometimes integrating them in subtle combinations of crystalline clarify and blurry abstraction. The style here isn't really riveting or overtly dramatic, but is more about subtle shading and leaving a gentler, but lingering impression."
The Skinny on Static Traps
"If you like the clicks, decay, silences and surface noise of music then Benbecula have something truly special for you. Cheer creates a faultless balance of textures in his sound, utilising gentle plucked guitar, counter-pointed with what sounds like the dying milliseconds of feedback looped over and over. But equally important to the pieces is that he employs a similar ethos to the likes of minimal techno godhead Ricardo Villalobos or artists on the sadly defunct Mille Plateaux label; on the surface, it may seem like 'simple' repetition - in this case of his treated guitar - but listen deeper and there is a turbulent mix of crackles, drones and pulses that becomes infinitely absorbing. On listening, you'll suddenly become aware, 3 tracks in, that you've stopped what it is you are doing, and that you're sitting very still in order to hear every last-minute sound. Microscopically brilliant."
Textura on Rain-cloud (Dom Dixon + Alec Cheer) s/t
“Rain-cloud (Dom Dixon aka talkingmakesnosense and Alec Cheer) traffics in a tranquil electro-acoustic style where lulling environmental soundscapes are faintly discoloured by mechanical rhythms, shudders, static, and the. Acoustic and, to a lesser degree, electric guitars occupy the front-line with droning streams of electronic noise softly resounding in the distance. The group name is well-chosen as it connects Rain-cloud to the natural landscape but, more importantly, its music does too. The duo’s peaceful material evocatively conjures images of vast countryside panoramas and early-morning, seaside tranquillity, the music’s meditative character conveyed by titles like “I Sit Here all Day” and “Keeping a Low Profile.” “Cloud Surprise,” for example, doesn’t announce the sudden onset of a violent storm but instead suggests a slow, stately drift of cumulous clouds across an immense blue sky. Sometimes, the background noise translates into programmatic content, like the loud rippling noise produced by deeply-gouged vinyl that suggests a storm-tossed setting in “Faulty Spaceship Two.” Rain-cloud will appeal to those drawn to the ‘ambient electro-acoustic’ material that’s sometimes issued by labels like Type and CCO sub-label Büro.”
Smallfish on Red Walk
"Following on from the absolutely gorgeous Benbecula Minerals Series CD we had from Alec Cheer last year comes this simply divine offering on London's Drifting Falling label. As a solo guitar album, it's really quite exquisite and there's a wonderful balance between catchy, lightly folky instrumental numbers and a more sculptural, processed sound. That, for me, is really where this CD hits its stride... the longer, more densely constructed pieces are absolutely beautiful and really bring to mind the looped, hypnotic sound of artists such as Windy and Carl or even - possibly more pertinently - Jasper Leyland or Mole Harness. Whichever way you look at it, this CD is just brilliant and comes with a very high recommendation indeed."