Chris Pellnat - Mister K - Bobby Parent
Chris Pellnat is a songwriter from Hudson, NY, USA. In addition to solo work and collaborations, he also plays electric guitar in the band, The Warp/The Weft.
His new album released a few days ago is called 'Crossing'. Chris explains why that's the album title.
"Why Crossing”?
Crossing the line
Crossing over
Crossing the rubicon
Crossing the divide...
"You get the idea: This album is about moving on to something new and unexpected - musically, spiritually and as part of the natural arc of life. But it’s not a dreary lecture - it playfully upends indie norms in a distinctive way, with lots of dulcimer, vibraphone and guitars."
Chris and the band The Warp/The Weft have been featured here a number of times in the past. I never tire of hearing new music from either party, the freshness, creativity and warmth is always notable. Although these day's I rarely comment on new material (it's a given that I like it - see the comments on the top of the sidebar), I'm happy to make Chris Pellnat and the new album an exception.
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Lorette West, MB's folk-pop musician Kevin Roy Kratsch — known professionally as the cosmic Canadian balladeer that is Mister K — has just released his debut album, In Event of Moon Disaster, and single “Tamarack” — available now!
To celebrate, Mister K has recorded a live, acoustic rendition of the song from the comfort of his own backyard in the region of Lorette West. The powerful performance of “Tamarack” features the aspiring musician’s wife Avery on backup vocals and guitar — and their adorable bulldog Luna, for emotional support.
Mister K points out that one of the sonic “easter eggs” found in the new album comes from his little canine companion; every time the word “moon” is sung on In Event of Moon Disaster, Luna rings a bell.
“If you listen hard enough,” he adds.
Overall, In Event of Moon Disaster is described as a musical journey through highs and lows, or “a pendulum swung through the hardship of darker days” (like the song), according to Mister K. Inspired by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it’s ultimately about overcoming adversity, emerging from the darkness and finding the light at the end of the tunnel; or even some sense of hope.
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“I saw an angel in the marble and I carved till I set him free” – a Michelangelo quote that would be etched in my mind as I started on my new journey in sobriety. A journey that, at first, would reveal the painful truth about myself and then reveal the genuine beauty and generosity of others. Finally with all my desperation and vulnerability revealed and all my substantial failures confessed, I could be free. Free to have others lead me, free to have others teach me, free to start over.
The album, Real Love, is in part about that spiritual journey and in part about the rediscovery of music and art. I wrote these songs to help me heal and to help me grow. “Emotionally insecure, wrought with fear, anger and self-doubt…all of it, buried under an ego designed to deceive and manipulate the truth of who I was to others and to myself” – this is the harsh and critical self-analysis where the story of Real Love begins.
Addiction and alcoholism defined almost my entire adult life. They were the tools I would use to self-medicate from a disease I didn’t know existed, or at least one that I couldn’t dare admit to having. A disease that eventually, would destroy, from the outside in, everything I ever knew or cared about. My family, my friends, my career, until it had nothing else to destroy but me. By the end of the chaos, with everything and everyone that was ever important to me, injured and gone, I was left with one critical question. How do I move on from here?
The answer was one step at a time with the encouragement and generosity of friends. The potential that my story could perhaps help others, as others had helped me, fuelled me as I embarked on this recording project to tell my story. Not a story about rags to riches or infamy to greatness but just one of hope. For all those that have or still wander the depths of chaos and despair, the self-destructive calamity that is addiction, as I have, there is a way out of that darkness, there is light, there is hope. There is that angel in all of us. This is my story of Real Love.
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