Cheval Sombre | Time Waits for No One
(Sonic Cathedral)
Cheval Sombre is rather prolific for someone whose music is so mellow; two traits that don’t always coincide. On the first of several 2021 releases, the lower Hudson Valley psych musician channels dreamy and genuinely comforting musical musings running counter-texturally to the anxiety we are all collectively living through, while the artist apparently remains aware that time is a finite resource. Soft, wide-open spaces or feelings can carry a powerful strength and songs like “Had Enough Blues” and “Curtain Grove” show a performer confident in seeding quiet and personal revelations and revolutions. Strings, keys, and guitar pair with prominent but drifty, catchy vocals yearning for more kindness. Light some incense and put the kettle on. Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom and Luna’s always-understated-but-terrific Dean Wareham join Sombre along with Britta Phillips, Gillian Rivers, Yuiko Kamakaru, and James Bareone for an addictive record. There is even a Townes Van Zandt cover.
This article appears in November 2021.
