Justin Cole doesn’t always know where a song starts. Sometimes it’s a single line that lodges itself in the back of his mind and waits. Other times, it’s a guitar figure that refuses to resolve until words arrive to meet it. And sometimes everything just shows up at once.

“I wish it happened like that all the time,” Cole said with a laugh during a recent studio visit at Radio Catskill, “but it varies depending on where I’m at.”

Cole, who is based in Port Jervis, has been earning attention in the regional indie folk scene with atmospheric, searching songs that navigate the gap between the person you were handed and the person you choose to become.

That theme is most explicit in “Haunted.” Cole says the song processes the anxiety of growing up in circumstances that can feel inherited—habits, fears, patterns passed down through family and atmosphere. Cole is careful to say it’s not a song of bitterness. It’s a song of release.

“Things that are handed down to you—you don’t necessarily need to keep them forever,” he said. “I went through this when I was younger and kind of grew up figuring out how to be. I’m probably not the only person who’s gone through that. Hopefully it means something to someone else.”

Justin Cole performs this Friday at 7 p.m. at Big Eddy Brewing Company in Narrowsburg, presented by Radio Catskill as part of its live music series. He shares the bill with Kate Prasher. The evening features $6 draft beers and 20 percent off

Image Credit: Justin Cole