Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart “Looking For The Thread”

A collaboration which draws career best performances from each of the partners on songs which could only have been the work of all three.

Combining the talents of three highly individual artists into one album can be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes it works, sometimes a spark fails to strike, and occasionally when the artists have a genuine love and respect for each other and their work it produces something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.

While the press that accompanies this release pitches Carpenter as the star, and Fowlis and Polwart as “two of the most adventurous and versatile artists in Scottish music,” the truth is that this is a true collaboration with equal parts of each contributor building the songs, regardless of where they originated.

The opening track, ‘Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe’, and one of two sung in Gaelic and led by Fowlis, was recorded for renowned Scottish accordion player, Fergie MacDonald, the ‘Ceilidh King’, who died in April 2024. To her great regret, Fowlis asked Polwart, and Carpenter whether they would mind setting aside an hour one morning to record the Gaelic standard, which had been MacDonald’s favourite song to send to MacDonald’s funeral. And a spell-binding arrangement as the result.

The trio brought their own material and while they tried out co-writes none of those songs ended up on the album. “There’s no way any of the four songs that I contributed would have existed in the way that they do without Karine and Julie,” says Carpenter. “So, there’s “that” version of co-working together. It may not be a formal co-write, but the energy, the personality, the artistic thoughts shape the songs as well.”

The music, produced sensitively by Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman, blends the work of all three as well. ‘A Heart That Never Closes’, while unmistakably a Carpenter song, features Fowlis’ whistle playing and harmonies which never quite tip over into saccharine. Calling the album ‘Looking For The Thread’ illustrate the quest which the trio actively explored, allowing each song to develop organically rather than following a preplanned path.

The highlights of the album are three interconnected songs ‘Satellite’, ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Silver In The Blue’, written by Carpenter, Polwart and Fowlis, respectively. The songs are sung from the perspective of a decommissioned NASA “zombie spaceship” condemned to drift forever in space; a century-old beech tree weathering a recent attack; and the mysterious journey of the wild Atlantic salmon. These songs draw superb performances from each of the singers. Kaufman allows the vices to stand out with a sparse, sympathetic backing on many of the songs, with instrumental solos kept to a minimal level. Polwart says of the players who supported the project, Kaufman on guitar, and keyboards, Rob Burger (piano, organ, accordion, keys), drummer Chris Vatalaro, Cameron Ralston on bass and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh playing a 10 string fiddle called a hardanger d’amore,  “the musicians were such attentive listeners, none of them overplaying, all of them bringing a beautiful textural quality. There was something really beautiful and fresh about it.”

Despite being led by Carpenter ‘Satellite’ is again as much a feature for Fowlis, as it’s writer, and her willingness to hand songs over for others to mould comes through on ‘Send Love’ which closes the album, with a fuzz guitar piece from Kaufman, and slight but entirely appropriate harmonies from Polwart and Fowlis which transform the song into something entirely different than she may have achieved on her own.

This then is one of those collaborations which takes on a life of its own, and the natural evolution of their relationship, with Fowlis connecting her work with Polwart to working with Carpenter on the Transatlantic Sessions means they cam to the album with a personal connection which allows the music to evolve and shift into a truly magical listening experience.