Kevin Bronson on July 2nd, 2020

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Singer-songwriter Alex Pfender — one-half of the electro-folk duo yOya — is (p)fond of (p)fragrant melody and harmony, and he’s made peace with the English language’s rare silent “p.” This week he christens his solo project, Pfred, taking a middle name that’s been in his family for generations and mashing it with his surname. “I always have to spell my last name for people anyway, and Pfred is shorter,” he says. “Naming things is such a nightmare.”

The title of his equally concise debut EP is “Am I,” an ethereal 11 minutes consisting of two songs and two interludes, recorded with Jack Zoephel. It’s an evocative personal reckoning, framed in the context of the inevitable loss of family.

The interludes feature conversations Pfender captured on his phone during his family’s annual summertime trip to Michigan. “Stories about my late grandmother, my great-aunts and -uncles,” he says. “The audio just went into a folder on my computer. I had forgotten about it until Jack and I were making ‘Am I.’ As soon as I dropped the voices of my family into the interludes, it felt like all the dots connected.”

Gritty guitar grazes the title track, in which Pfender frets over amorphous plans and dreams. “We’ve got one last move worth making / while we’re dreaming / long as we’re dreaming,” he sings, wondering at the end, “Am I losing it?” And there’s a hint of early Radiohead balladeering in “Goner,” a song inspired by the passing of the songwriter’s grandmother in 2016. As it spirals to a fuzzed-out finish, Pfender tells of touching her white hair and realizes “in 30 years I never called you by your real name.”

||| Stream: “Am I”