Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Karine Polwart Join Forces For ‘Looking For The Thread’

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Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart have teamed up for a new album, Looking For The Thread, due out Jan. 24 via Thirty Tigers.

Ahead of the release, the first single, “Hold Everything,” is out now. Penned by Polwart, the song gives a nod to the world, as it is, and to John Berger’s 2008 book, Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance.

Carpenter, Fowlis and Polwart came together in 2023 to begin the collaborative new project, but share mutual respect stretching back decades. Polwart and Fowlis are dedicated fans of Carpenter, while Carpenter, in turn, has long admired the pair, sharing, “I remember telling my manager I wanted to do this and he may have challenged me about who was on my wish list. I’m certain I blurted out Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart. Anything they do is brilliant and beautiful, and I wanted to fold myself right in there.”

The three convened in January 2023 to perform alongside Robert Vincent at Song Circle, an event in Glasgow. From there, they headed north to a writing retreat at Kinlochmoidart House. “It was like some Hollywood notion of the Scottish Highlands,” says Polwart. “Everything was conducive to creating. It was dark and we were hemmed in, sitting by the fire making stuff.”

The trio returned to Kinlochmoidart House in early 2024, with producer Josh Kaufman in tow, and the album was completed in a week with tracks recorded live, everyone playing together in the same room, responding to the music in real time. “The songs hadn’t been pre-produced to within an inch of their lives and the band hadn’t heard them in advance,” says Polwart. “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.”

Album highlights include “Satellite,” “Rebecca” and “Silver In The Blue,” written by Carpenter, Polwart and Fowlis, respectively. The opening track, “Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe,” was recorded for renowned Scottish accordion player, Fergie MacDonald, the “Ceilidh King,” who died in April 2024. It is one of two tracks sung in Scottish Gaelic, led by Fowlis. As non-Gaelic speakers, both Carpenter and Polwart learned their parts phonetically.

When recording was complete, all three artists, plus Kaufman and the musicians, turned the lights off in the studio, lay on the floor and listened to what they had made. “There were no words, no critique,” says Polwart. “It was just us all tripping out and going on a wee journey. It was really beautiful. When I hear the songs, that’s what I picture in my head.”

Looking For The Thread Track List:
1. “Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe”
2. “A Heart That Never Closes”
3. “Rebecca”
4. “Looking For The Thread”
5. “Hold Everything”
6. “Silver In The Blue”
7. “You Know Where You Are”
8. “Satellite”
9. “Buidheann Mo Chridhe Clann Ualrig”
10. “Send Love”

Lorie Hollabaugh
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