Only Connect by Charlie Glasspool and Sarah McInnis

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”

That was one of a handful of passages Charlie had highlighted in his dog-eared paperback copy of E.M. Forster’s Howards End. It might seem like a strange diving board to leap from into a recording session, but we’ve known Charlie for a long time. So, when he told Ariel and I that he wanted to come to Prince Edward Island with Sarah McInnis and make an album of music arranged mostly for piano and voice, recorded live in a haunted theatre, and largely inspired by an early 20th century English novel about class and social mobility, we didn’t even blink. I’ve long admired Charlie’s ability to find inspiration in unlikely places, and then turn it into beautiful music that combines heart, oddity, humour, and passion in perfect proportions.

Nevertheless, I confess to some trepidation from a production standpoint: Ariel and I had the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown booked for just one day to capture the main piano and vocal tracks live on the stage, then we’d have just two more days to finish everything else in the studio. Would the piano be in tune? Would passing potato trucks roar and rumble through an otherwise perfect take? Would Charlie and Sarah - who live nearly 2000 kilometres apart - be prepared enough to get it all done in the first place?

I shouldn’t have worried. From the first bars of the first song, the magic was there. Like all magic, it was both human and otherworldly: there was the mystery and charm of the long-haunted theatre, the dim yellow lights and the floors creaking with history, and the simple sorcery of two excellent musicians in top form, playing and singing together, connecting across a stage.

As we created this album over the next 72 hours in the fog and the rain of an especially rainy and foggy island spring, that connection only grew. As good as they are at singing and playing, Charlie and Sarah are even better at listening, and I think you can actually HEAR them listening to one another, pausing, and responding. These songs celebrate the intimate and revel in quiet textures. Lyrically, Charlie leans on the “we,” his words gathering brothers, authors, lovers, uncles, strangers and friends—even Neanderthals—into a welcoming bear-hug, regardless of the wistful distance of time and space that might separate them.

Musically, there are moments of fun and even bombast, but these melodies and arrangements mostly whisper, and the sensitivity of the production has been highlighted by Lisa Conway’s mixing and the delicacy of Heather Kirby’s mastering. Sarah’s voice is rich and astonishingly versatile; she vocalises tiny raindrops in Goalkeeping, then soars when she sings “we are the chalk cliffs that hover over Dover” on the magnificent Jimmy & Lucy. Though Charlie’s music will always contain traces of the peculiar mix of ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, operetta and doo-wop that make up his musical soul, his restrained playing channels something more here, clinging to the narrow tightrope that binds the melancholic and the jubilant.

Fundamentally, this is an album about people and the ways they sometimes connect, and sometimes don’t. On one of the record’s two traditional folk songs, the lovers we’ve been singing about since at least the 17th century—Sweet William and Barbara Allen—still can’t seem to communicate effectively, leading to their by-now predictable but still tragic deaths. If only they had read E.M. Forster.

Yet the brief moments of disconnection only highlight the overall sense of togetherness and familiarity that threads through the songs. I feel so grateful to have been a part of this, but this is an album that invites everyone into its world: ultimately, you’ll become a part of it too.

--Mathias Kom

Tracklist

1.	In a previous life	2:37

2.	Hollow night their wings	3:41

3.	5%	4:40

4.	Goalkeeping	1:26

5.	Jimmy and Lucy	5:54

6.	Barbara Allen	5:03

7.	Toast of the Barrhead Hotel	4:01

8.	Railroad work song	4:29

9.	Leonard	2:44

10.	Carrying	1:51

Credits

released January 30, 2023

Only Connect was recorded in the Spring of 2022 on a far-flung corner of Prince Edward Island at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown and The Fairfield Social Club.

Engineered by Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom
Produced by Mathias Kom
Mixed by Lisa Conway
Mastered at Dreamlands Mastering by Heather Kirby
Lathe cuts by Jackson Darby at Personal Touch
Cover art by Dan English
Album printing by Myles Conner

Sarah McInnis: voice, omnichord
Charlie Glasspool: piano, voice, bass pedals, organ, trumpet, baritone
Mathias Kom: narrator, bass, drums, hurdy gurdy, shruti box, recorder
Ariel Sharratt: bass clarinet, tenor sax
Wyatt Burton: electric guitar on 5%
Trevor Davis: electric guitar “Cybil” on Jimmy & Lucy
Lisa Conway: typewriter on Jimmy & Lucy
Ruthie: voice on Railroad Work song

In a previous life (Glasspool/McInnis)—do we believe in reincarnation? Not sure. Dreams and visions seem to suggest an affirmative response to the question.

Hollow night their wings (Glasspool)—a perceived revolution. A tip of the hat to Charles G.D. Roberts and Ludwig Van Beethoven here and a warning about the dangers of unbridled patriotism. So very palpable and current in “Canada”.

5% (Glasspool)—listening to my favourite CBC show Quirks and Quarks one Saturday in the car. The British anthropologist suggests that most homo sapiens of European descent have the titular amount of Neanderthal DNA in their systems to this very day. As said anthropologist listed traits associated with this entirely other species I had to pull over, averting a highway accident in the process, because I possess them all.

Goalkeeping (Glasspool/McInnis)—Albert Camus was a promising goalkeeper as a young adult. As was I. This piece, with almost unbearable rubato, is meant to capture the wandering thoughts one has when you play this most unusual position, at once participant and spectator. How much of L’étranger was composed during a football match?

Jimmy & Lucy (Glasspool)—I had the fateful blessing to meet an enchanting young British couple by these names. Something about them, and their very being, gave me and gives me enormous and eternal hope for a future defined by love and connection. Many Indigenous friends of mine here on Turtle Island, from many disparate nations, have told me that a major problem with the colonial/settler mentality is that said folks are not connected to the land from which they come. Or their songs and stories. For this reason, I love you James and Lucy. Reconnecting and reminding me. Once upon a time Iceni, Briton, Celt, ancient matriarchal societies, to and of and from the isle, fighting the Roman invaders.

Barbara Allen (traditional)—pursuant to the last song on the previous side, here is a song that is older than hills. A song connected to the land—how the rose got its thorns? My father’s lullaby to me as a child.

Toast of the Barrhead Hotel (Glasspool)—whoa. wow. This one just kind of happened during the session. Once upon a time, my brother and I, proverbially, were as thick as thieves. We were in our very first bands together—GHSS Concert Band, NSF, The Cravens, The Mindchangers, The Glasspool Brothers. A song that simultaneously celebrates the memory of that connection and the sadness to have lost it.

Railroad work song (traditional)—a re-working of a song that The Silver Hearts used to play at a breakneck tempo. It never worked for me at such speed. It is a lament. My father worked on the trains when he immigrated to “Canada” if this seems a disingenuous cover.

Leonard (Glasspool, letter written by Leonard McFadden)—this is the last correspondence from my Great Uncle Leonard before he was killed at Vimy Ridge.

Carrying (Glasspool, McInnis)—this entire side of the album is especially personal and especially difficult for me to listen to now that it exists in some real way. Here is some respite for me, and for you the listener. Ending with encouragement from E.M. Forster himself.

License