Christo Graham - Music for Horses
We Are Busy Bodies
Released on October 4th, 2024
My favourite kind of album (and my favourite kind of art in general) is the kind that feels like it captures the whole range of an artist’s interests and inspirations. Music For Horses by Ontario’s Christo Graham ranges from small-room cozy indie folk, to hangdog country, to honky-tonk, to full-on Beatles British invasion. This kind of album, when it’s done right (as it is here), manages the tricky balancing act of moving between different tones, genres, and tempos without feeling rushed or muddied. There is so much craft and joy behind songs like “Pancakes and Eggs”, “Lonely Enough”, or “Hilltop Coffee Stop”. The album has such a sense of craft and consideration, while still being hugely playful and fun. I mean, “Unwanted” is flat-out hilarious, the rambling internal monologue of a man so desperate to be wanted, he imagines the joy of being called out, “wouldn’t matter what about”, or of being a “wanted” man. Silliness in the arts should always be cherished and encouraged.
Folk music has this longstanding kind of fascination with memory; so many songs explore the twisting spaces between then and now. It’s not surprising really, the form fits the content well: nostalgic but mysterious, familiar but a little dangerous, warm in spite of the cold. The music of long lonely (possibly drunken) nights where time gets a little blurry. Horses plays a lot with memory, but thankfully without a lot of self-indulgent over-seriousness. There’s a tantalizing feeling of almost-ness to a lot of the songs, the day almost, but never quite, dawning. Whether it’s lyrics like, “Midnight comes, midnight goes, midnight knows now the sun’s rising” on album opener “Hunker Down”, or late fantasies of a favourite restaurant. It’s like he’s constantly catching himself in the act of remembering, jolting back to the present with a slight air of embarrassment. It’s playful, and human, and sincere. It’s great.
I want to spend a moment on one song in particular: “If I Don’t Leave Now”. This song is really incredible. It’s a familiar melancholia, the weird mix of hope and fear in trying to overcome inertia. Seeing the end of the road you’re on and wanting so badly to run away and be something else, somewhere else. It’s a beautifully crafted song, and the album highlight for me. It’s kind of a microcosm of the album as a whole, earnest and gorgeous and thought-provoking and a little silly. This is one of the best albums I’ve listened to this year.
Give it a listen, it’s worth your time.
- Josiah Snell