Kevin Bronson on October 3rd, 2019

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Nik Freitas writes songs that often feel like life’s little miracles.

A San Joaquin Valley native and onetime photographer/writer for the skateboard Thrasher Magazine who turned to music in 2002, Freitas has released eight solo albums, as well as playing in Conor Oberst’s Mystic Valley Band and working as a side man for the likes of Broken Bells, Jenny Lewis, Johnathan Rice and M. Ward.

His songwriting mines his vivid imagination and boyish curiosity — Freitas is the sort who wonders about things. How did a street get its name? Who are all those faces he sees in the windows of low-flying airplanes above his Alhambra home? How is love like a painting whose colors fade? How does a single mother get by? How, at 41, does he process the death of a friend compared to how he did so as a youngster?

All those questions, some small and some obviously large, are addressed on Freitas’ new album “Cavalo Morto” (Portuguese for “dead horse”), arriving via his new label home, Park the Van Records (Dr. Dog, Broncho, Cayucas). The self-produced album is due Jan. 31.

“Aviso Amor” (“love warning” or “love beware”) is the first single, a cautionary tale about getting caught up in the delirium of new romance. “I want to know how it feels / To be connected to a heart that isn’t mine,” he sings.

It’s a simple theme: “Two people falling in love, really caught up in it all,” Freitas explains. “For the chorus I pictured me in kind of a Grim Reaper type character, rising up to warn the two new lovers that one of them might get their heart broken — but it can also be looked at as I am warning them that when you are connected to another persons heart, it can be a bumpy ride.”

||| Stream: “Aviso Amor”

||| Live: Nik Freitas headlines the Bootleg Theater on Oct. 23, joined by Supermoon, Sharon Silva (The Wild Reeds) and the Love Language (solo). Tickets.

||| Previously: “What a Mess,” “Anyone Listening”