The excitement was almost tangible amidst the rather irregular queue that had formed early outside the entrance to The Chapel, upstairs at The Angel Microbrewery in Nottingham, for the return to the city of possibly Austin, Texas finest contribution to the Americana music scene in a very long time. Thanks to the tireless work of promoter James Windsor and his team at Cosmic American Music, tonight’s headline act was Carson McHone; across in the UK, for a handful of shows promoting her most recent album Pentimento, that came out last year to rave reviews across the music press, with words such as “dazzling”, “career-defining” and “truly special” being used to describe a body of work that to these ears was most definetly album of the year. Of course, receiving such plaudits is nothing new for Mchone, with her sophomore album Carousel named by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the 40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2018, while her following album Still Life received a whopping 9/10 from these very pages.
Tonight, Mchone was accompanied by a quartet of musicians, including two members of the band Hollow Hand: Max Kinghorn-Mills on guitar and bassist Leo Clarke, whose own fourth album Wish Road South was only hours away from release. Alongside them was Chris Boot on drums and Fliss Horrocks on harmonium and backing vocals, who, in company with Mchone, all managed to successfully take their place on the relatively small stage here at The Chapel, without knocking any of the instruments or microphones over. However, a good level of flexibility, not to mention sobriety, was clearly an asset.
Everyone in place, Mchone opened the evening proceedings with a cover version, the only one of the night, and a rather obscure one at that, with The Circle Is Unbroken, which first appeared as the closing track on the 1968 album Wee Tam and the Big Huge by The Incredible String Band, but here in the hands of Mchone and her bandmates delivered with a different level of intensity as it ran almost seamlessly into the infectious bryds-esque jangling guitars of Downhill, the first of seven songs to be performed from her latest album. Two tracks from the Still Life album followed, with the atmospheric Spoil on the Vine preceding the hypnotism of the title track. At this point, one became aware of the subtle variation in the arrangement of the last two tracks, compared with the album versions, with additional musical layers accompanying the dual distortion of the electric guitars, creating an indie vibe more in keeping with the newest release. One could rightfully argue that the album Still Life was very much a musical stepping point, connecting to both the more familiar country and folk influence of Carousel as well as the broader musical palette of Pentimento. Interestingly, the accurate meaning of pentimento is “a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer, or layers of paint on a canvas”, which perfectly matches the album’s countless musical touchstones whilst using both time and space as creative tools to sculpt something truly unique.
The fruits of that labour were experienced in greatest depth during the next twenty minutes as Mchone and her musical partners for the evening delivered four songs from the latest album back-to-back, starting with Idiom, a song infused with the dark overtones of old folksongs and an angelic, almost hymnal chorus. The brooding opening guitar riffs of The Canvas again offer the perfect juxtaposition to Mchone’s ethereal vocal delivery, which extends into Vision in the Verse, a song that adopts a greater intensity in this live setting.
From here, the set list took us back to the Still Life album and End of the World, featuring some delightful accompaniment from Horrocks on the harmonium, while Folk Song teases with its familiar melody and reflective narrative that feels both timeless and of its time. In between, the opening song from Pentimento, Winter Breaking, gently increases the tempo and sees Mchone pick up the tambourine on a song that gradually builds to a crescendo with some deft guitar support from Kinghorn-Mills, while the harmonica is the instrument of choice for Mchone on Fruits Of My Tending, with its almost pastoral beginnings, Mchone singing, eyes tightly closed, before the song morphs into an almost grunge fest of distorted guitars and intricate rhythmic support.
There was time for one more song, with the rocking Someone Else inducing the audience into a mix of shuffling feet, swaying bodies and nodding heads, before the final notes from the band were met with a raucous response demanding an encore that was rewarded with a fabulous rendition of Hawk’s Don’t Share that opened up the Still Life album. Here again, Mchone held the crowd in the palm of her hand, as she had done for most of the show, her relaxed between-song interaction feeling much like a conversation with old friends, and in truth for many in the congregation this was a return visit, and one I am sure they will be keen to make again and again, every time Mchone returns to these shores.
There was a sense this evening that proof was delivered, if in fact it were needed, that Carson Mchone is the real deal. Whether with her sublime multi-faceted musical creation or her mesmerising performances, she is ushering in a new dawn for the Americana music genre, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she does next.
