Cheval Sombre

Emerging from New York in the mid-2000s, singer-songwriter Cheval Sombre, born Christopher Porpora, cultivated a poetic and atmospherically hazy style that positioned him as a leading advocate for 1960s psychedelia and immersive space rock. Close partnerships with Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 and Dean Wareham from Luna helped cultivate a devoted audience through the self-titled 2009 debut and the 2012 release Mad Love. The 2018 collaboration with Wareham yielded the wide-ranging covers set Dean Wareham vs. Cheval Sombre, after which Sombre returned to independent work via the paired 2021 albums Time Waits for No One and Days Go By.

Based in New York City, Sombre absorbed a broad range of sounds from his parents’ vinyl holdings, which encompassed Laura Nyro, Billie Holiday, and Donovan alongside rare flamenco guitar discs, classical works, medieval folk pieces, and further styles. During childhood he acquired proficiency on his father’s classical guitar largely through self-instruction, later sharpening the technique in several lessons with his aunt. By his teenage years he had explored the Velvet Underground, the Modern Lovers, Genesis P-Orridge, and additional cult acts, while also serving one day each week as a local radio DJ who featured many of those same recordings.

Following high school, Sombre spent several years in an experimental rock band based upstate. After the group disbanded, he adopted the name Cheval Sombre—given by a friend—and began solo recordings shaped by Terry Riley, Alastair Galbraith, and Zbigniew Preisner. Published poetry also brought recognition during this period before he chose to concentrate fully on music.

The 2009 debut Cheval Sombre appeared under the guidance of Sonic Boom, also known as Peter Kember, with Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips among the contributors. Mad Love followed in 2012, again involving Sonic Boom and Wareham plus members of MGMT. The 2018 joint effort Dean Wareham vs. Cheval Sombre interpreted songs by Blaze Foley, Stephin Merritt, Townes Van Zandt, and others. Rejoining producer Sonic Boom produced the 2021 solo album Time Waits for No One, while the companion release Days Go By arrived the same year with a guest spot from Wareham.