Kevin Bronson on May 4th, 2018

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The last time we heard from Nik Freitas, he was releasing his seventh album and providing some badly needed inspiration for those who want to quit smoking. The Visalia native who now calls Alhambra home is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer who, when not doing his own thing, has played with Conor Oberst’s Mystic Valley Band, Broken Bells, Johnathan Rice, Jenny Lewis and M. Ward.

Freitas crafts easygoing but sneaky-smart songs whose impact is often greater than the sum of their parts. So it’s not surprising that on his new “What a Mess” — where there are more parts — he reaches maximum effect. Starting as a guy-with-a-guitar meditation, the song blossoms into something as sonically affecting as its intentions — which is a plea: “Somebody turn this world around.” Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius and Greta Morgan of Springtime Carnivore join in “What a Mess’s” bombastic (for a Freitas song, anyhow) chorus, but by the end he shucks the weight of world events to sound like the hopeful family he is: “The morning news is old by 10 a.m. / My children dream of ice cream and a new swingset / in the evening sunlight …”

The song is from Freitas new album “Day & Dark,” out June 29. Besides the aforementioned guests, the album features contributions from singer-songwriter Maria Taylor. And in addition to Freitas’ full-length, he has a track on “Friends and Family, Volume 1,” the compilation coming from Taylor’s Flower Moon Records.

||| Stream: “What a Mess”

||| Live: Nik Freitas celebrates his album release show June 28 at the Bootleg Theater. Tickets. Freitas is also among the performers at the Flower Moon Records’ release party on Tuesday night at Resident (info here), along with Jake Bellows, Whispertown, Louis Schefano, UMM, Viva Violet and Mike Bloom.