Althea

Earlier this year Cheval Sombre, the musical vehicle for New York poet/ songwriter Chris Porpora, released two albums- Time Waits For No One and Days Go By. Both are beautiful records, slightly frazzled, folky/ acoustic guitar songs with Sonic Boom at the controls adding a swirly, quietly psychedelic backdrop. Dean and Britta added backing vocals and guitar. Both are really good, a self- contained world in themselves and also, especially Time Waits For No One, quite bleak. Had Enough Blues, a desperate plea to shut the outside world off is punctuated by samples of terrorist attacks and atrocities from news channels. 

Had Enough Blues

The pair of albums were released a couple of months apart and they're not an easy, everyday listen but well worth the investment and the time spent with them if you fancy some catharsis. Cheval Sombre's voice is recorded really close to the mic, like he's singing in the room next to you. Days Go By is more up, the promise of spring after the dark of winter It's difficult not to draw parallels with the recording of them during 2020 and everything the pandemic threw at us. Even so, Days Go By isn't exactly a happy- go- lucky song and dance album, more a sense of relief that we made it through the night and the dawn has actually appeared.

To bookend the year there's now a three song EP (out of 10" vinyl if that's your bag). The lead song is an eight minute cover version of Althea, a song originally by The Grateful Dead (and that's the first time they've been mentioned here I think). 

It's followed by a Sonic Boom remix of Are You Ready (from Days Go By), the sound of snow falling late at night while, all echo and reverb, some organ and FX and Cheval Sombre's voice. It's a stunner.