Inside a still life, but still alive...

There is something almost excruciating about the places in between. The feeling of falling, a reassertion of gravity as one step leads to another, but just before the foot lands. The purgatory between borders, before clarity becomes whole.

Still Life, Carson McHone’s third album and first release with Merge Records, quivers like a tightrope, with songs about existing within such tension and surviving beyond the breaking point. These are stories of sabotage, confusion, and surrender. The album is a testament to the effort of reaching, sometimes flailing, for understanding and for balance. Still Life invites us to gasp at our own reflection, while acknowledging the unsettling beauty in this breath. 

McHone’s 2018 internationally released Carousel (LOOSE MUSIC / NINE MILE RECORDS), produced by Mike McCarthy in Nashville, was a reimagining of songs from her formative years coming of age playing in Texas bars. It established her as a shrewd artist who raises unconventional questions with language equally at home in a short story or a poem.  Still Life addresses a broader picture. It is thematically more refined and yet more daring. McHone’s voice remains front and center, but it’s richer, darker. Wielded more than woven. A gorgeously wrought instrument for pushing meaning forward.

McHone wrote the songs of Still Life in quiet moments between tours in her hometown of Austin, then recorded in Ontario with Canadian musician and producer, Daniel Romano. “Daniel is a perceptive player and his response was intuitive and organic,” McHone says of the session, “Shadows sharpened and came to life as full vignettes that felt familiar in a magical way, a product of keeping things emotionally open. I think we picked up on things that were unwritten.” Together in a home studio they cut almost the entire record themselves, calling on two friends, the versatile Mark Lalama on accordion, piano, and organ, and David Nardi with some savvy saxophone to round it out. The phrasing and tones recall the late 60’s and early 70’s, another era of transition and innovation (think John Cale, The Kinks, Richard and Linda Thompson). 

This first time collaboration brings a compelling dynamic. The musical punctuation is intricate, erratic, and at times even playful. The arrangements provide texture to the landscape of the songs while sustaining the underlying thematic tension. The album opens with “Hawks Don’t Share” a literary allusion to the creative sabotage that often confronts artistic alliance.  A pair of sparring electric guitars sets the scene, mirrored in the line, We’re both boxers babe/ we don’t make love.  Bright horns pop between phrases overtop a tight rhythm section. A jangly twelve string leads us into a driving chorus with big vocal harmonies and layered synth. The title track plays out an anguished spiraling. Right at the point where language fails, the vocals break away into fuzz guitar and violent, incessant piano, as if the turmoil can only be expressed by music. In “Sweet Magnolia” the strings, horns, and piano create a perfect orbit for the mannered intensity of a song that soars but is essentially spoken. "End of the World" builds with dark and dissonant violins over a repetitive major guitar progression leaving us hanging on its final line, tell me what do you know of restraint?  The punchy sax and tumbling toms of “Only Lovers” play into the ruse of pretending you haven’t already fallen when you have. The background vocals are like a playground taunt.  “Someone Else” cuts right to the punch. I’m caught between the two/ sweet despair and hope renewed/ say it ain’t profound babe. The lyrics are wry and the vocals perfectly nail the attitude.  The rolicking organ and the hammering piano conspire to bust down the door and pull us along. Again, McHone takes us to the in between, and this is a ride we want to take. 

 There are raucous and light hearted moments but ultimately this album is concerned with serious themes.  More than timeless, this record is timely, inherently modern, immediate. The final song, “Tried”, acts as a kind of eulogy for the spaces these songs embody. The bardo one must emerge from. The album challenges us to take responsibility for what we experience and how we negotiate gravity moving forward. Still Life summons us to the present in all its complexity, daring us to join in the deliberation. Here is an exposé of conscience, and a confirmation of the inherently hopeful act of creation. 

Let’s find a new language to use so we’re not confused

-Photo by Carson McHone

October 13, 2022 // Julianna Riolino, Carson McHone, and Daniel Romano Want You to Tell Them What Their Songs Mean

A roundtable on the subjectivity of art, and more

Julianna Riolino is a singer-songwriter from Welland, Ontario; Carson McHone is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas; and Daniel Romano is also a singer-songwriter from Welland, and the frontman of Daniel Romano’s Outfit. The three are collaborators (Julianna and Carson both perform in The Outfit) and all are visual artists as well. While on tour at a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the three artists sit down to discuss the intersections of their various media, the subjectivity of art, and much more for Talkhouse Music. 

Praise for Still Life:

”Still Life moves her from being ‘one to watch’ to the woman of the moment.” —MOJO

“Her supple voice is a thing of understated beauty” —Uncut

“In a stroke of prescient songwriting, McHone explores themes of attachment and longing,

uncertainty and loss.... In that way, Still Life rises to meet this current moment.”  —Austin Chronicle

“…the songs on Still Life probe the permeable boundaries between desolation and exhilaration,

isolation and community, failure and hope, loss and love” —No Depression

“Still Life exists on a higher plane…one of the best albums you will hear this year.” —Glide Magazine

February 28, 2022 // Carson McHone celebrates the release of Still Life, spars in “Spoil on the Vine” music video.

Carson McHone explains her new single “Spoil on the Vine” and its music video:

“Lyric theatre presents exactly that, a play on words. The Foil takes many forms on the subconscious stage, and in this otherworldly landscape, illuminates the true reason and being within.”

It’s the fourth self-directed music video from Carson McHone’s extraordinary new album Still Life, which was released to critical acclaim last Friday.

January 12, 2022 // Carson McHone announces new album Still Life for February 25, shares title track and video

After introducing herself as a Merge artist last fall with “Hawks Don’t Share,” Carson McHone is sharing details about her third album and first release with the label. Still Life, recorded in Ontario, Canada with musician and producer Daniel Romano, will be released February 25th via Loose Music in the UK and Europe, and Merge Records in the USA and beyond. 

Today, Carson McHone shares the title track. She directed the accompanying music video, as well as the one previously released for “Hawks Don’t Share”; this time, McHone’s in front of the camera but her face still eludes the frame. McHone had this to say about the video: “We drop in on a body in motion, in and out of the light. When language fails, and there is only the feeling, the body has to keep moving.”  The video was shot by Daniel Romano in McHone’s hometown of Austin, Texas.  

Following the release of Still Life, McHone and Romano have announced a massive tour that sees both artists sharing and joining each other’s band, with dates in North America and Europe.

- Album Artwork by Bonner Bentley, 1957

October 19, 2021 // Carson McHone signs to Merge Records, releases “Hawks Don’t Share” music video

The Austin native will release her third album and Merge debut in early 2022, the follow-up to her Mike McCarthy-produced Carousel which was recorded in Nashville and named one of Rolling Stone’s Best Country Albums of 2018.

“Hawks Don’t Share”, recorded with Ontario’s Daniel Romano, is a literary allusion to the creative sabotage that can confront artistic alliance. The track is available everywhere today, along with a cleverly self-referential McHone-directed music video.

On the signing and release, McHone had this to say:

“The past year and a half shifted everyone's lives dramatically. I’ve been off the road and off the stage, and for the most part in seclusion since I flew home in the middle of a tour on March 12th, 2020. Although sequestered, I’ve been lucky enough to use this time to explore new creative ground and cultivate new creative relationships. I am excited now to begin sharing the results and honored that the wonderful folks at Merge Records have signed on to help me spread the word! I’ll be teaming up again with Loose Music in the UK and Europe and I look forward to getting back on the road, both in the States and and overseas, for some shows in 2022. The first song is “Hawks Don’t Share,” performed with Daniel Romano and David Nardi. It was mixed by Kenneth Roy Meehan and mastered by Kristian Montano. The accompanying video celebrates collective creativity and affirms that we are all, in our own way, artists; that life itself is a work of art. A big bouquet of thanks is due to the Camera Varda crew who embodied these characters for me and helped bring this vision to life. Cheers to the joining of forces!”

- Photo by Daniel Romano, 2021