Singer-songwriter Carson McHone used to be based out of Austin, but in the time since signing to Merge for 2022's Still Life, she has relocated to Welland, Ontario, home of her close collaborator Daniel Romano. McHone is a member of Romano's crack band, Daniel Romano's Outfit, he produced Still Life, and he shot her new press photo down below, among other intersections. (Coincidentally, we have an interview with Romano today about Pig Pen, the hardcore band he formed during the pandemic with his old friend Matty Matheson and others who once haunted the Niagara-area teenage hardcore scene.)
McHone is back today with news of a Still Life follow-up. Pentimento is set for release in September, heralded today by lead single "Winter Breaking." She shared this statement on the album as a whole and "Winter Breaking" in particular:
This project continues to be, really, a community effort. What began as a methodical structuring of personal artifacts kept speaking of collaboration, which allowed me to open up the process to others and bring it to life. Making the initial recording brought together a group of six musicians, but the project has expanded to include a web of many artists and disciplines. If my last album, Still Life, represents a static moment, a pause before a pivot, Pentimento is the natural next step. It’s full of movement—through time and space, through many forms… It’s a project that engages with shadow, with impulse, with paradox, and with play. I hope the record illustrates the process of integrating these things, of acknowledging the complexity of being/becoming.I am so happy to start releasing this out into the world now. So, we begin at the top, with the very opening of the album: “Winter Breaking.”
"Winter Breaking" continues McHone's journey through the borderlines of rock, folk, and country. Her dignified voice and Romano's slicing, dicing guitar continue to sound great together, the bass really grooves on this one, and the tambourine/handclaps situation here is first-rate. The McHone-directed video highlights the work of ceramicist Alejandra Almuelle; watch below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Intro"
02 "Winter Breaking"
03 "Abstract Spring:
04 "Downhill"
05 "Interlude"
06 "Vision In The Verse"
07 "In The Summer The Streets Burned"
08 "Idiom"
09 "Fruits Of My Tending"
10 "Forbidden Kiss"
11 "The Canvas"
12 "Lucentum"
13 "Wake You Well"
14 "Triumph Of The Heart"
15 "Create Away"
16 "September Song"
Pentimento is out 9/12 via Merge. Pre-order it here.
