Lexington, MA-based songwriter Kevin J.B. O'Connor, from Bredon, has returned with his newest track, "Karmic Wheel" an arresting indie cut that melds introspective lyrics with lush elements. The single recorded at Starsound Studios in Cape Coral, Florida, serves as an evocative step in O'Connor's creative evolution, intertwining traces of Pavement's slack whimsy, Built to Spill's spacious textures, and Elliott Smith's hushed intensity into something entirely its own.
"Karmic Wheel" unfurls like a sunrise, slow and warm. There's a lived-in melancholy to O'Connor's singing, not overdone, just genuine. His delivery is closer to an intimate conversation than a performance, drawing the listener in. It's easy to get lost in the laid-back intricacies of the guitar work here, unwinding in a cascade of layered, fuzz-kissed waves that are at once thoughtful and forward-looking. It's the type of song that feels like the memory of it congealing in real time. O'Connor is in plain view as a guiding influence, but "Karmic Wheel" isn't derivative. Instead, he sucks up the ethos of his musical heroes and filters it through his lens, one that appears caught on the circular nature of thought, feeling, and consequence. There is poetic restraint in both the arrangement and the lyricism, an impression that O'Connor isn't aiming for bombast so much as a mood that lingers. Mission accomplished.
The primary difference with this track is its pacing. Instead of barreling toward a chorus or trying to dazzle with production, O'Connor lets the song stretch its limbs. The restraint pays off. The result is a soundscape that unfurls gently inward, complement to the thematic weight of the title itself, that invisible wheel we all spin on, coming back time and time again to the same lessons, same routines, same faces.