Red PK binds itself to Spring
A frequent question that Craig Finn asks his guests on his How I Remember It podcast is whether they view music seasonally, saving specific records for a specific time of the year. A fair amount say that they don't, that they don't hear music in such a way; small reminders that we all consume this strange little thing through vastly different hearts and minds.
For as long as I've loved records I've placed them into particular pockets of the year, often needing to pull them out to fully ground myself after the transition from one season to another. Autumn isn't autumn until I've kicked leaves with The Weakerthans; I reach for Florist when it's warm enough to open a window and let in the fresh air; I drive home in the lilting light of long summer days to any Hovvdy record that's close to hand.
Whether Andy PK deliberately timed the release of his debut record to coincide with the start of a new season is perhaps by-the-by. But it arrives, as Spring does, today, wrapped up in the same soft glow, the same subtle textures that feel indicative of this time of growth and renewal.
Having played guitar and pedal steel for a number of excellent bands – Tobacco City, Free Range, hemlock – Horse Like Me is the first solo record from Andy's Red PK project, one that takes in both of those instruments and subtly drapes his understated voice on top. As such, the songs here drift between swaying country-ish ballads, and a kind of saturated indie-rock sound. Hovvdy feel like an apt comparison, but so do a band like Fust, in the album's crunchier moments of release.
Across the record, Andy calls on a bunch friends to help colour in the edges. Seth Engels provides drums throughout, Jodi's Nick Levine adds splashes of synth on a couple of tracks, while Scott Daniels adds violin to all of them. There's space too for a Free Range collab, as wells as Miles Allen's clarinet on a couple of songs, and guest vocals from Sofia Jensen on a couple more.
Spring, though.
Maybe the bright aching blueness of the day as it fell here embellished such feelings, but these songs really do feel ready made for right now, reaching out just in time for this shift from the end of long winer into something more tender, more gently lit. 'Easy Now' is hushed and evocative – beautifully detailed in ways that are prominent elsewhere; the lovely opening track 'Get Down'; the Free Range-featuring title-track – and that glowing evocation is key to the album's charm, presenting a spirit that even in its quietest moments feels supremely endearing.
Maybe these songs will shift again with the seasons, they wouldn't be the first to do so, but all we have right now is right now, and Horse Like Me has settled into today like it was bound to it, like it was waiting just beneath the soil's surface just waiting for the light to take hold and pull it out into the world.
It's released today, and you can stream/buy it on Bandcamp right now.
