Andy Carhart, Pernicious Birds, & the Existential Wonder of Their Latest Song, “Universe”

Kate Stanton follows the five-year journey of Andy Carhart and Pernicious Birds’ “Universe,” a song about creativity, mortality, gratitude, and finding meaning beyond streaming numbers.

Kate Stanton

20 min read

There is a particular kind of indie musician that I have always respected: the artist who doesn’t need to make a lot of noise about making music. They let their music do the talking.

They quietly keep working. They’re recording, experimenting, collaborating, releasing music, and promoting it. They may not be as bold as others when it comes to marketing, but they consistently put thoughtful, carefully made songs into the world.

My first article for The Vibe Vault is about one of those artists: Andy Carhart.

Andy Carhart is an independent solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter from Colorado. He moves comfortably between mellow folk rock, atmospheric electronica, instrumental guitar music, and heavier rock. His influences range from Joe Satriani and Michael Hedges to Pink Floyd. I’ve also had discussions with Andy about A Perfect Circle, and there is a philosophical and contemplative quality to much of what he creates.

His catalog includes Circular (2016), All Those Times (2024), Erasing Me (2025), and his newest release, “Universe,” released July 17, 2026, in collaboration with the French indie-rock project Pernicious Birds.

I don’t believe “Universe” is simply another release or collaboration from Andy. I had a feeling this song was about something deeper.

Upon further investigation, it turns out I was right.

“Universe” began back in 2021.

Pernicious Birds had sent Andy the beginnings of three songs. Each already had an arrangement, a guitar part, and a title. The word “Universe” immediately suggested something to him: vastness, mystery, wonder, and a connection between our human past and future.

But the song remained unfinished.

There were early lyrics, melodies, and acoustic-guitar parts, but other songs were completed while “Universe” was left behind.

For five years, it waited.

Sometimes songs seem to have their own sense of time.

At the beginning of 2026, Andy was feeling increasingly disillusioned with the indie music scene and the pressure to chase streaming numbers. Who among us hasn’t felt that lately?!

His inspiration had diminished, and releasing music had begun to feel more like work than discovery. He had become focused on what he wanted but wasn’t achieving, which was more streams, more listeners, & more audience growth.

Eventually, he realized that the pursuit of external validation had taken him away from something more fundamental: gratitude for the ability to create music in the first place.

That is when “Universe” came back.

Reading Andy’s responses to my questions, I couldn’t help but feel excited for him at this point in the story.

The dark side of creativity can be overthinking and burnout. Sometimes we must destroy the old to rebuild the new. We must feel it to heal it.

Music is alchemy this way.

Something that once held so much power can begin to drain us if we aren’t in alignment with our truth or our mission.

Pernicious Birds’ Olivier contacted him while the band was considering finishing the song with another singer. Andy told him he would be completely comfortable if they decided to go in that direction.

He was willing to let the song go.

Another quiet power move.

Only afterward did he return to his old recordings and discover that he still had a strong connection to what he had created years earlier.

The song had been waiting.

And, in a way, so had he.

During the process of revisiting “Universe,” Andy describes looking out a window at the stars. Carl Sagan’s famous idea of our being made of “star stuff” came back to him, opening the door to larger questions.

What does it all mean? Does it mean we are physically connected to the universe?

What does it mean that we are conscious beings capable of wondering about that connection?

What do we do with mortality?

What remains after the people and our pets we love are gone?

And how do belief, hope, and uncertainty coexist?

Andy doesn’t pretend that “Universe” provides answers.

That is part of its appeal to me.

There is courage in asking these kinds of questions, forming new connections, collaborating, and choosing creation over consumption. In some ways, that process itself provides the answers.

Listening to “Universe,” I’m struck by how much confidence there is in its restraint.

Restraint is an interesting tool in songwriting, and I know I’ve mentioned this to Andy before in one of our discussions about A Perfect Circle.

There are artists who announce themselves loudly. They demand attention and build their work around immediacy and spectacle.

There is nothing wrong with that.

But independent music also needs its quieter voices.

“Universe” doesn’t try to grab the listener.

It unfolds.

The atmosphere allows the listener to escape into sound.

The arrangement begins sparsely and gradually expands. Guitar, atmosphere, and layers accumulate. A three-part wordless vocal harmony opens the song outward, creating something Andy describes as almost spiritual. It is like a small choir appearing inside the music.

Then there is silence.

The song drops away before returning to its final chorus and ending guitar solo. Even the ending resists a conventional resolution.

The guitar notes bend slowly. Reverb and delay create space around the instruments. The arrangement expands and contracts.

Andy is quick to point out that he didn’t consciously design every musical decision as a symbolic representation of existence. Most of it simply felt right.

That distinction interests me.

Sometimes instinct gets there before language does.

We make a choice because something feels true, and only later understand why.

Andy describes “Universe” as having a beginning and a re-beginning. I love that.

I think it may also have had a message before its songwriter fully understood it.

Years before the song was completed, its fragments already contained ideas about wonder, perspective, connection, and mystery. Then, when Andy was questioning whether he wanted to continue releasing music, those same ideas returned.

He had spent years making music, then stepped back from it. In stepping back, he began reconsidering why he made music at all.

When “Universe” returned, it helped him reconnect with something that had been there from the beginning.

The song didn’t solve his existential questions.

It became part of the process of asking them.

There is another part of Andy’s story that speaks directly to the experience of being an independent musician today.

Numbers are difficult to escape.

Followers. Streams. Monthly listeners. Views. Engagement.

For artists trying to build an audience, those numbers can begin to feel like a measurement of worth.

Andy experienced that firsthand. He became involved with streaming groups that artificially inflated his numbers. The numbers looked better, but the experience felt empty.

Eventually, he stepped away.

His monthly listeners became considerably smaller. And somehow, that made the remaining number more meaningful.

Instead of seeing statistics representing everyone who wasn’t listening, he began seeing actual people who had chosen to listen.

He still wants his audience to grow. He just wants it to grow because more real people are connected with the music.

I often say that I want a song to mean the world to a listener rather than a world of listeners.

I hope even more indie musicians start to adopt this mindset.

The numbers don’t tell the whole story.

We become our music. It means so much to us. It is precious, and we can sometimes conflate that with our worth.

That is why I found Andy’s willingness to let go of the numbers so interesting. There is something almost countercultural about making the music, releasing it, and then allowing it to exist without constantly measuring its performance.

Sometimes you must “post and ghost,” so to speak, and let the music do the talking.

For me, that is part of what makes “Universe” feel so genuine.

“Universe” is also a collaboration.

Pernicious Birds is a French indie-rock project formed in 2017, with music that draws from psychedelia, folk accents, and electronic elements.

Andy says they have always given him unrestricted creative freedom when collaborating on their material. At the same time, he has never wanted to erase what they originally created.

Instead, he works around it.

That kind of collaboration requires trust. It also requires knowing when not to force something.

Perhaps that is part of what makes “Universe” work.

It was allowed to take its time.

I think independent music is at its best when it gives us something we didn’t know we needed.

Sometimes that’s a great guitar riff, a lyric that stays with us, a moment that makes us stop and listen, or even something quieter.

“Universe” asks us to look at the stars. To think about the people we’ve loved and lost. To consider the strange fact that we are here at all.

Andy came back to the song during a period when he was questioning his future in music. He had become tired of chasing numbers and expectations. What he found in the unfinished song was not a solution, but perspective.

Gratitude.

Not for what might happen.

For what is already here.

That seems fitting for a song about the universe.

There is always something bigger than the number.

Bigger than the algorithm.

Bigger than whether everyone is listening.

As songwriters, we can forget that. We can become so focused on being heard that we lose sight of why we wanted to make something in the first place.

Maybe sometimes the work is simply worth making.

“Universe” feels like that kind of song.

Quiet.

Thoughtful.