Theo Kandel

Theo Kandel manages to slow life down just long enough to write songs about it. With his quick wit and fingerstyle guitar, the New York-based singer-songwriter has been patiently gathering a loyal audience around the world, earning cosigns from some of the other rising talent in the folk scene along the way. 

 

Now, he seeks to make sense of life’s extremes aloud on his sophomore full-length LP, A Horse Named Friday [Nettwerk Music Group]. 

 

“I realized much of this new album was either informed by the really low lows or the really high highs of life,” he observes. “But happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety – all of these emotions are ultimately fleeting. It’s a comforting thing to understand you’re always moving forward, even if it doesn’t feel like it.” 

 

His full-length debut LP Eating & Drinking & Being in Love was released in 2024 to wide acclaim. OnesToWatch raved, “Using his folk-meets rock spirit to capture what means most, Kandel’s debut is the perfect soundtrack for saying goodbye to summer nights and welcoming in the change of fall,” and Melodic Magazine hailed it as “a simple, yet moving debut.” In the midst of that album cycle, Theo shared the stage with artists like Rayland Baxter, Evan Honer, Jordy Searcy, Briscoe, Max McNown, and The Script. 

 

If Eating & Drinking & Being in Love highlighted the small, quiet, and often uncelebrated moments in life, then A Horse Named Friday does the opposite: it deals in peaks and valleys.

 

“Back in August 2024, one of my best friends passed away out of nowhere,” he says. “I’d known him since I was five. The next day, I flew out for another friend’s wedding. It was a crazy emotional rollercoaster to go on over the course of a week. And almost one year later, I lost another friend.” 

 

“It’s the thesis of the record,” he declares. “I wanted it to be full of juxtapositions between good and bad moments. I tried to translate how jarring it felt when Oliver died. It leaves you with the understanding that no matter what tangent you may think you’re veering off on, you should always be confident that you’re going somewhere. None of these emotions last forever.” 

 

The opener “A Horse Named Friday” rolls into town on a fingerstyle guitar reminiscent of the old American folk scene. Theo ponders, “I step into the river, I cannot step in twice, for I am not the same man, and it flows into the night.” 

 

“Despite your side quests and many deviations from the path, you’re still pushing forward,” he affirms. “It’s the classic hero’s journey where the hero has the moment of impetus, leaves for a quest, and comes back home. However, home isn’t the same because he is not the same person anymore. It’s a wandering song.” 

In the end, Theo invites listeners to wander alongside him. 

 

“When you listen to the record, I want you to feel like you’ve been on a journey,” he says. “By sharing my own journey, I believe I was able to do right by my friends who are no longer here.”