Hrishikesh Hirway

In The Last Hour of Light is interested in these twists of life: it’s interested in the moments and people who shape us before they vanish. These songs are about the ephemeral, and about grief in its many facets: the anguish of losing a parent, the possibility of a child, friendships lost to time. This album is about certain events in life that feel so encompassing, so consuming—even impossible to endure—and the unassuming moments, too. It’s about how all of it forms the unique constellation of a person’s life. In The Last Hour of Light is aware that the brilliant stuff of life—all the things that transform us, the people or experiences from whom we never recover—comes to us like sunsets, every single day. It’s as mundane and miraculous as that. This is an artist in the process of allowing time to change him. He’s learning to hold life and music a little bit more lightly—even through his practice of pottery. In the process, he’s finding beauty in the imperfect and the temporary. In The Last Hour of Light is tinged with the temporality that makes the sunsets so beautiful. Sunsets seem like a trick—some sleight of hand, some illusion. In the end, a sunset is more amazing than a trick: it’s reality. “No gold can stay,” Hrishi sings. “Hold on til it sets.” — Rachel Khong