Astryx* - Wake Up to the Sun

When Alexandros (Alyx) Damaskinos Saris moved to New York about a decade ago, it wasn’t to make music. It was to become part of the fashion world. In doing so, he soon found himself DJing all across the city. At some point, though, he began playing a synthesizer that he’d brought to the city when he moved, and soon realized that, by not creating music, he’d lost an important and essential part of himself and his identity.

And so he began writing songs again, and Alyx Astryx* was born, now rebirthed as the band Astryx* since Alyx joined forces with Ryan Peterson (guitar), Freddy Gerngross (bass), and Tino Guitierrez (drums). The first batch of songs resulted in the 2024 debut EP, Don’t Listen To Stars. Now, their first full-length, Wake Up to the Sun, continues and builds on the hopeful romanticism of that release. Dark yet euphoric, these twelve songs capture the highs and lows Alyx has experienced on his journey to date. Simultaneously existential and euphoric—both lyrically and musically—this is an album that shimmers with the power of its owns dreams.

Like all the most effective and emotive songwriters, Astryx*’s songs impart a universal truth about what it means—and feels— to be human. Yet they also blur the line between reality and unreality. For while this album is steeped in his own experiences, its songs aren’t always about them, or about him—much the same way that Bruce Springsteen, for example, has always told the truth through fiction, through characters based on people he knew.

Astryx* does that to great effect, all set to a seductive, ’80s-inspired sound that’s as much Depeche Mode as it is The Cure and which straddles space and time.

This album is a perfectly collaborative effort of Alyx and these friends he’s made since moving to New York all those years ago. It is both incredibly personal, and heavily influenced by the talents of the bandmates that surround him. Haunting and beautiful, fun yet earnest, the album captures who Alyx was when he moved to New York, who he’s become since and the journey to get from one to the other.