Cheval Sombre

Mercury Lounge; Sun 26
Death by Audio; Wed 29
(Le) Poisson Rouge; June 6

Photograph: Courtesy Reverie Bookings

The most unlikely song on Cheval Sombre's self-titled debut album is "Hyacinth House." It's a cover, performed by a singer shrouded in cool mystique, of a song by perhaps the corniest act in the rock & roll canon: the Doors. The original is quick and groovy, Jim Morrison reciting his bunkum with comic solemnity. Sombre brings it to a crawl and a whisper. As on all of his recordings, remarkably little happens: A keyboard drones, an acoustic guitar is gently strummed, and Sombre sings in a dreamy voice with pointed diction. If Morrison is the classic mook who's in over his head, Sombre sounds like an accidental mystic, calm in the face of absurdity. "I see the bathroom is clear," he blankly croons. "I think that somebody's near."

Cheval Sombre has just been released on Double Feature, a label operated by Luna alums Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. Both contribute to the record, but the bulk of the disc is devoted to the work of Sombre and his producer, Spaceman 3's Sonic Boom. Like Sonic Boom's own work, Sombre's songs are deeply psychedelic, swathed in an enigmatic haze—it's tempting to place sunglasses on the CD itself. Appropriately, the New York singer seems a man without fingerprints: his biography blank, his publicity shots obscured. He'll briefly drop his veil for a series of live appearances this week, opening for his producer's Spectrum, and again in June, supporting Dean & Britta.—Jay Ruttenberg

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