Still Life

That rare singer and songwriter from Austin, Texas who was actually born there, Carson McHone sounded like the great honky-tonk hope on her early recordings, playing beautifully crafted, barroom-friendly country songs with a splendid voice that added just a hint of welcome texture to her clear, heart-tugging instrument. 2022s Still Life, her third LP (and first for the venerable indie label Merge Records) takes her gifts and moves them into a different direction without blunting the qualities that made her memorable. While country influences are still audible in these songs, here she embraces roots rock, blues, indie rock, 70s folk rock, and idiosyncratic pop in her melodies as well as her arrangements, and allows scrappy electric guitars to take center stage on several tunes. Daniel Romano, the Canadian indie musician whos made several fine albums of his own blending similar ingredients, produced Still Life and anchored the studio band, and his thinking clearly had an impact on this music. But in her vocals as well as her songs, McHone takes to this approach like a duck to water, and the energy in her performances on "Someone Else" and the title track sounds gloriously liberating; shes clearly having fun taking her music to new places and the performances are full of the joy of discovery. (Flashes of this albums ambition were audible on 2018s fine Carousel.) She also digs into a slow groove on "Only Lovers," evokes the dirty vibe of early-70s Rolling Stones on "Hawks Dont Share," conjures the spirit of Sandy Denny on "Folk Song," and is strong enough to lay herself open on the border of emotional defeat on "Tried." All the gifts that made Carson McHone an artist to watch when she first emerged from the Texas singer/songwriter arena are present and accounted for on Still Life, but shes added new ideas that make this music feel like a metamorphosis; transforming herself into an artist who has thrown off any generic frameworks that confined her in the past. ~ Mark Deming

テキサスの女性シンガー・ソングライターの3作目は、カナダの奇才、ダニエル・ロマノとの共作という意欲作に。2人の出会いは謎ながら、彼女も参加しているロマノのバンド、アウトフィットの作風も受け継ぎ、60～70年代のブリティッシュ・ロックが持っていたポップ・フィーリングが新たな魅力として加わった。カントリーの範疇で語られることが多かった彼女は、これまで以上に幅広い注目を集めそうだ。
bounce (C)山口智男