Roy Jurgens on November 18th, 2019

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Josh Klinghoffer has more than earned his bona fides, and now it is his time to shine a bit. Widely known as the guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers, the onetime sideman for PJ Harvey, Beck and Gnarls Barkley is releasing his first solo album, “To Be One With You” under the pseudonym “Pluralone,” out Nov. 22 via ORG Music. The album features guest spots from current and former Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates Flea and Jack Irons, respectively. Members of Klinghoffer’s experimental band Dot Hacker also appear, along with former Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery. Klinghoffer released his first solo single “Io Sono Quel Che Sono” a cover of Italian singer Mina, in August, with a B-side of “Menina Mulher Da Pele Preta,” originally by Brazilian musician Jorge Ben.

The opening single, “Shade,” has an odd Beatles feel to it as it hurtles along like a ramshackle rag and bone wagon. It has a strangely familiar and earnestly romantic quality about it, as if you’d heard it before, in a different life, long ago. “I was listening to John Cale when this one came,” Klinghoffer told Mxdwn.com, where the single premiered. “There was a caustic nature to the whole thing. I heard drum fills that bucked time and a guitar solo of gun shots (opted against that approach). Enlisted the sweet sounds of Clint Walsh to try and hide a bit of the bitterness.”

Klinghoffer’s music is rapt and sensitive without coming across as self-indulgent and twee. While he sounds nothing like the late, great Jeff Buckley, he treads the same vulnerable emotional territory. Pluralone’s “To Be One With You,” which comes out Friday, is a record to be listened to rather than just heard.

||| Stream: “Shade” and “Fall From Grace”