Nothing prepares you for Pentimento by Carson McHone. It diverges from the mainstream more often than not. From the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1840, to the bird song that follows then is repeated on a rickety piano, let alone the fact the entire album was recorded on an 8-track cassette recorder, or the fact that some of the album has been gestating since the early days of the pandemic. Every time you think you have a handle on where the album is going it zags off in the most delectably unexpected ways.
There is nothing normal about Pentimento. In a digital age, it was recorded on an outdated eight-track cassette machine. Mixed like an album that is a remnant of the 70s, drums mixed all way to one side, guitar and bass on the other, instruments come at you in waves. ‘Winter Breaking’ shifts between subtle shading followed by full-bore passages without ever feeling like a remnant from a bygone era. The bass solo propelling the end of the song leaves you speechless trying to reflect on everything you’ve just heard.
Sonic shifts sweep through songs like ‘Downhill’. Seeming like a race against time, bright guitars burst through before being replaced by an insistent bass. Careening along the song shifts quickly with an almost Beatlesque synth lick. McHone’s lines tug unexpectedly, “I remember sweat in my eyes I remember the bitter taste of asphalt/ I remember blood in my hair and I cannot yet forget/ The memory last impressed upon my skin/ From falling fast.” Moments and memories intertwine and intersect.
Initial bursts of Fairport Convention inhabit ‘Idiom’ before it takes off on adjacent, but unexplored, pathways. Mannered strings send the song running through unexpected fields while McHone uses idiomatic phrases to paint her love, “Now naked the night, the moon has come back/ Fully exposed, less a bite and a half/ but what can be whole, tell me what is enough?/ The evening is starving so why spare the dove?”
Merging the poetry of husband and producer Daniel Romano’s Sat Before A Swan with her own lyrics, ‘Fruits of My Tending’ seems to create an entirely new form of communication. Romano’s poetry offers a different, though complimentary, portrait of their relationship. The closing section leans heavily into an electrifying blast of Romano’s guitar over the final two and a half minutes, clearly illustrating how the nature of the heart can also tear things apart.
‘September Song’ feels like it has been around forever, yet lyrically it seems clearly to reside in the 21st century. A line like, “The meaning does transcend the form, the art becomes the artist” doesn’t feel like it could have existed at any other time, yet the music seems more akin to a piece from the 19th century. McHone’s ability to find the bridges that span eras is just one more element that makes her music so appealing.
While most of the songs on Pentimento were written in Austin, Texas, they were committed to tape in southern Ontario, where McHone and Romano now live. Yet, these songs transcend location, stemming from the inward being where we reside inside ourselves. Rooted to the heart and soul, Carson McHone has created a collection flying in the face of logic and tied to the realities of who we are.