With her new album Pentimento, singer-songwriter Carson McHone—also known for her work with Daniel Romano’s Outfit—continues to explore the spaces where folk, country, and art-rock intersect. Recorded on eight-track cassette, Pentimento unfolds like a living collage: meticulous yet spontaneous, shadowed yet full of light. In our conversation, Carson reflects on the making of the record, the meaning behind its title, and how community, collaboration, and the natural world have shaped this deeply expressive new chapter in her artistry.
Welcome to Carson McHone
First of all, Carson, I want to welcome you here to Femme Metal Webzine and ask you, how are you, and how is this period treating you with the promo and everything?
Sure. Thank you for having me, firstly. It’s a pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the new record. It’s been really wonderful to finally have the album, Pentimento, out in full. Furthermore, it’s something that has taken on so many pieces, patched together that make it a whole.
So, for the rollout of the record with the announcement and the singles, it kind of felt like working backwards in a way, then parsing it out again. So it’s nice to have it back together again and to offer it as a full album for people, finally.
I’ve received so many messages from people who have found a moment to sit down and put the record on, and they end up listening to it two or three times through. It’s nice that, whether it’s an album with songs that pop off just singularly in this modern world. It’s nice people have found time to sit with it as a whole. Likewise, it seems to resonate deeply that way, and that means a lot.
“The elements of the natural world were definitely present in the writing”
Yeah, I had time to listen to it—it kind of reminded me of nice days with rain. I don’t know why; it felt like that. It also felt like a warm album.
Awesome. That’s nice to hear. The elements of the natural world were definitely present in the writing—the words, the recording. When we recorded together, we were very much in the elements. We had shelter, a safe place to rest and to record, but we were also going to extremes in a way: being out in the desert to record, and then being beside water—kind of opposites and extremes of each other.
I think that’s very present, and it comes across when you listen. However, it manifests—whether it sounds like rain, dust or feels like sun, sea—the elements are there.
The little puzzle in the new album of Carson McHone, Pentimento
While I was busy with my research while listening, it felt like a little puzzle that came through, because you have the more pastoral folk, the acoustic moments, and also something that recalls Daniel Romano’s Outfit at the same time. It all comes together, in a straight but right way—I don’t know how else to explain it.
Yeah. It’s funny, I set out to make the record, I think what I had gathered lyrically and thematically as far the words are concerned, it happened organically. And then gathered all those elements. Then, to make the recording, it was kind of methodical process. In listening to songs and records, that for me represents classics, I was listening with the sole goal to break things apart—it was like finding the glue that holds all this together, but also that little “off” thing that draws you in. I hope that with Pentimento, we achieved something that is slightly “off” to hold your attention. By carrying you through with the glue, which makes it flow.
The meaning behind Pentimento
It feels like glue, even the title. In my native tongue, Pentimento means repentance or regret. Then I discovered that Pentimento also means an artifact, a remnant of a previous draft—a leftover. It felt strange in both meanings, but it made sense.
Initially, it tied back to where I was emotionally thinking about the next step after my last record, Still Life. I had a collection of things that I wanted to say and a place where I was coming from, and I thought the title fit for that. Because some repentance and some shame or shadow have been addressed. Then, we composed and recorded it.
To me, bringing friends into the fold, and having the whole thing elevated, it was so joyful. At the end of the sessions, I wondered if the name still fit because there is a shadow to that, an underlying darkness to it. It has uplifted to the point that it’s not appropriate anymore. But then I thought—no, the meaning is absolutely still there, and there is still a shadow of the meaning before. Then, I thought that the title is even more appropriate.
The all-encompassing nature of Pentimento
I feel like Pentimento goes beyond being an album per se, Pentimento feels like an artistic idea—compact, multi-visual, encompassing. For example, The “Idiom” song became a bigger project in Ontario. And in the “Winter Breaking” and “Downhill” videos, where there’s the recurring work of Alejandra Almuelle. It’s more than an album—it’s an all-compassing opus.
It’s funny how this is happened because for me, it makes perfect sense that happened in a natural progression. I moved from my hometown, and I fell in with this group of new people, and consequently, I have begun to reshaping my community and this life somewhere else. My ecosystem is shifting and expanding at once. It lets me look back at where I came from—literally and metaphorically as well. This shift has allowed me to look back and recognize where I’m coming from, what I’m bringing with me and what I carry forward and, what has bestowed upon me with this new community. So, with the music videos, I wanted to keep representing the people who inspire and embody the ideas behind my work.
I was influenced by Alejandra and her work ethic, and I know that I’ve hugely changed by my best friend and now, a mother of my godson, Layla. I cannot even wrap my head around it. It’s amazing. These relationships are profoundly affecting me as a thinker, and as someone who experience the world. It feels like a bit my job as a songwriter to witness all this. Even if all of these happenings, are not obvious in the songs, I wanted to visually illustrate by the means of extended music videos.
Moving to Canada and the poems
I also find Pentimento quite encompassing for works that are born within it. I wanted to ask about the poems you chose to feature in the intros.
The album opens with a quote from a letter of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’ve grown to appreciate Emerson and his essays. But, I initially read this quote from him because my mother gave me a journal when I moved away to Canada. She gave me the journal that she kept during my first year of life, and every single entry is addressed to me.
I’ve never had read it before. It was really profound to get that upon my leaving while re-shaping my life forward. The first thing she read was Emerson‘s quote while for closing the album, I had my mother reading the first entry while I was an infant. It’s sort of a response to Emerson‘s. I love the idea that the ending quote on the album is actually the beginning of the journal.
While the other spoken words across the album, some poems are read by me, others by my friend Layla who’s also a poet, who reads with her son André, and my husband Daniel, who also reads a portion of a poem that he wrote in one of the songs. It’s between the verses. For me, all this in conversation with each other, whether literally and thematically.
Carson McHone: “It came over in a conversational manner”
I’m just surprised and petrified by the beauty. You know, I tried to listen to the words of the poems. I was not able to focus on it. But at the same time, I understood that it was on purpose. I love that you don’t need to know the backstory to feel it—it’s intentionally subtle, natural, spoken rather than performed. After your explanation, I even understand more now about the whole context.
It’s nice that it feels that way. That it came over in a conversational manner. You don’t need to know the story, but maybe you sense it anyway.
Capturing Pentimento on a 8-track set cassette
Yes. I know this record was captured on an eight-track set cassette. That’s a challenge—it’s not digital, so if you make a mistake, you either redo it or record over it.
Or it stays [laughs]. In a way, it was beautiful that because the limitation forces your hand. Either you have it or you don’t. We had to make choices about inputs, who shared mics, distance, and placement.
One song in particular—Daniel played acoustic guitar through most of it, then switched mid-song to electric, walking into the next room to pick it up. It created this live, almost theatrical energy.
For tremolo effects, Daniel was literally in the bathtub with the amplifier while I was in the other room recording. There were songs where I added harmonies later—like “Wake You Well,” where I layered my voice to create that shadowy, double effect I love in other artists’ records.
Carson McHone: “I’m really meticulous and insecure”
So, half of the album was rigorously planned, and half was spontaneous—very “live-off-the-floor.” It’s full of contrast. And I think that’s the point—multiple truths coexisting. It fits with the whole general picture.
I agree. For me, the reasoning behind that was, being I’m really meticulous and insecure, I feel the need to have everything in order. However, at the same time, I wanted to push myself out of the comfort zone. Open up myself. I think I did it, but I prepared myself at great lengths for that moment. Of course, both things are true and they are there. You can hear them both as a sort of rigorous patchwork. Both the meticulous and the spontaneity. It’s like a painting that exists in the same space. I think we have achieved that. And I’m proud of that.
Upcoming plans
As closing words—do you have any upcoming dates between the US and Europe? I saw you this summer at Rotown in Rotterdam —I was in the front row, took some photos.
Beautiful! Thank you. I think I’ll be back in Europe, likely in the fall of next year. It depends on scheduling with the Outfit and my solo work, but it’ll happen—maybe full band, maybe stripped-down acoustic. It happens either way.
Like with the eight-track, the limitations will guide it. I’ll make the most of whatever form it takes. I have close friends in Europe now, and maybe we’ll form a little band there. So, fall of 2026, maybe late summer. Who knows—maybe we’ll just stay.
Thank you, Carson, for your time. I hope to see you next year.
Thank you. I hope to see you next year too. Thank you for your thoughtful questions. I’m so glad you enjoyed the record.