Mary Chapin Carpenter and Friends Go ‘Looking for Thread’ and Find Kismet

When they finished recording their album, Looking for Thread, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Karen Polwart, and Julie Fowlis, along with their producer and musicians, switched off the studio lights, lay down on the floor and listened to their creation. According to a press release, Polwart summed this up as, “just us all tripping out and going on a wee journey.” From the west coast of Scotland to an English studio this journey properly asserts itself in the album’s sense of space. Carpenter’s rich, empathetic American folk blends beautifully with the Scots, Fowlis and Polwart, who add their own traditional and contemporary styles.

Asked about a collaboration Carpenter said in the release, “I’m certain I blurted out Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart.” She had performed with Fowlis in the Transatlantic Sessions while Fowlis and Polwart, both big fans of Carpenter, regularly worked together. The trio started by exchanging ideas remotely before they all met during 2023’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, from where they headed northwest to write at the remote Kinlochmoidart House. A year later they returned with producer Josh Kaufman to take their songs a stage further. A carefully selected group of musicians completed the ensemble, all recording live to give the album its fresh open feel.

Fowlis was most involved in the two traditional Gaelic songs. Opener “Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe,” a haunting lament where her Gaelic lyrics transcend time and space is her tribute to legendary accordion player Fergie MacDonald. It is hard to believe Carpenter and Polwart are not also fluent Gaelic speakers. Their harmonies to this and “Buidheann Mo Chridhe Clann Ualrig” are ethereal as are the musical arrangements, in particular the hardanger d’amore, a ten-string fiddle played by Caoimhin O’Raghallaig.

Carpenter describes the two Gaelic songs as “foundational” but the album travels far from that Hebridean core. A distant whistle launches “Satellite,” Carpenter’s perspective of a NASA spaceship, “I followed everyone’s command/ First 18 years were fine and grand” then after “30 billion miles” is destined to remain in orbit forever.

The precariousness of the natural world offers much inspiration. Polwart’s “Rebecca” is a century old oak tree that bears the scars of attempted felling and titled after a name carved into her trunk. Polwart’s gentle folk-tinged vocals combine resilience, kindness and especially hope. ‘Silver In The Blue’ traces the journey of a threatened species of salmon downstream to the sea and feeding grounds thousands of miles away and back again. Fowlis sings with the mysticism of the Celtic mythology that reveres this creature’s wisdom. Sonically there is a flow of uncertainty that surrounds such immense natural wonder.

Carpenter’s compositions are typically thoughtful. The purposeful tempo and warm vocals of ‘A Heart That Never Closes’ emphasize the important and unimportant. Similarly introspective, the title track is “just looking for the thread / That ties it all together.” “Send Love” builds layers of sound as the entire group throw themselves into a glorious overture.

Anyone who has attended a ‘Transatlantic Sessions’ show will recognize how perfectly Carpenter’s writing and music fit with the traditions of the Celtic world. Looking For The Thread is the proof.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, and Karine Polwart’s Looking For The Thread is out today.