Carson McHone announces new album ‘Pentimento,’ shares “Winter Breaking”

Austin alt-country singer Carson McHone has announced her new album Pentimento, which follows 2022’s Still Life and comes out on September 12 via Merge (pre-order). About the album, she says:

All of the songs of Pentimento began as poems against the backdrop of global crisis, national borders, civil unrest, birth, death, bad love, new love, true love. They were written in the desert during spring and summer. There, history and time are visual in the drama of great boulders, in layers on a rockface—the potential and past energy of the ancient sea-floor. Some of these lyrics were written on postcards and in letters. Others began as embellishments on watercolor paintings, or captions for a photograph in a diary, or were written as responses in the margins of a journal to a child, newborn, from a generation past. These “artifacts” from writing/living informed what would eventually become material for this record.

Later, beside the ocean, and during the first snow of the season, a special group of musicians gathered to bring the album to life. While half of the songs were built into place according to a rigorous “plan,” the other half came together for the first time on this very occasion and were learned and performed live on the spot. Over six days, all of it was captured on an 8-track cassette tape recorder, including fortuitous feedback bass drone, and spontaneous laughter.

[…] 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” is both the opening track and the lead single, and it’s a lovely dose of Americana-infused rock music that comes with a video featuring Peruvian clay sculptor Alejandra Almuelle and her work. Check it out below.

Tracklist
1. Winter Breaking
2. Abstract Spring
3. Downhill
4. Vision in the Verse
5. In the Summer the Streets Burned
6. Idiom
7. Fruits of My Tending
8. Forbidden Kiss
9. The Canvas
10. Lucentum
11. Wake You Well
12. Triumph of the Heart
13. September Song

Carson McHone — 2025 Tour Dates
Jul 18 Deventer, NL – Burgerweeshuis*
Jul 19 Rotterdam, NL – Rotown*
Jul 20 Venlo, NL – Grenswerk
Jul 24 Ermelo, NL – In De Rimboe
Jul 30 Barcelona, ES – Upload*
Aug 01 Madrid, ES – El Sol*
Aug 02 Valencia, ES – Loco Club*
Aug 07 Göteborg, SE – Way Out West
Aug 08 Fredrikstad, NO – Tæpes
Aug 12 Uppsala, SE – Katalin
Aug 13 Östersund, SE – Jazzköket
Aug 14 Trondheim, NO – Moskus
Aug 15 Ringebu, NO – Arnemoen Gard
Aug 16 Lidköping, SE – Bustad Brewing
Aug 17 Lund, SE – Merjeriet*
Aug 19 Drammen, NO – Kulturhus
Aug 20 Bergen, NO – Statraden
Aug 22 Vangen, NO – Haugesund Festival
Aug 23 Stockholm, SE – Stockholm Roots

*Supporting Daniel Romano’s Outfit