After spending much of 2020 with her thoughts and instruments, Charlotte Cornfield knew it was time to take her new songs out of the house. She’d spent months writing a suite of evocative, autobiographical story-songs in near-solitude, and was ready for the immediate, regenerative experience of a band playing live in the studio. But this wasn’t mere pandemic-related longing. It was instead a long-simmering desire. Though the songs of Highs in the Minuses — her debut release on Polyvinyl and Double Double Whammy (out now digitally) — are highly personal, Cornfield wanted their sonic quality to convey the communal, aleatoric energy of live performance. 

Channeling the spirit and working methods of Jason Molina, Neil Young, and Big Thief before her, she and the band allowed their psychic connection to convey the emotional interconnectedness that comes with stories of heartbreak, self-discovery, and new love. So many of the tunes expose her messy corners, and an animate soundtrack played with equal parts heart seemed only fitting.  Cornfield (guitar, piano, vocals), bassist Alexandra Levy (Ada Lea) and drummer Liam O’Neill (Suuns) convened in Montreal at the studio of Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen). In just five days, with minimal takes and overdubs—and with contributions from guitarist Sam Gleason (Tim Baker) and Stars singer Amy Millan—they set Cornfield’s vivid mini-memoirs to an earthen folk-rock symphony. It ebbs and flows based on each song’s feeling: sturdy and buoyant in its jubilance and hope, and stripped back and vulnerable in its lonesomeness and pain.

It’s tempting to think of Charlotte Cornfield as a narrator, given the autobiographical nature of many of the songs, but this framing discounts her deep consideration of the listener. She’s not broadcasting absolute truths but rather inviting us to feel alongside her, to acknowledge the raw, shambolic commonality found in individual experiences. In this sense, Highs in the Minuses is a two-way street that anyone may travel,  one summoned from sharp, lived details and conveyed to universal effect. Like David Berman and John Prine, Cornfield’s lyrics ring with precision — a rhythmic, poetic clarity that may devastate the heart or tickle the ribs in a simple turn of phrase. They’re the product of extensive revision, refined time and again to their most affecting state. Though this album teems with brutal honesty, it does not weaponize its pain. Instead, Cornfield presents its details like a documentary, laying out her facts without a hint of bitterness or an evident agenda. So is it difficult to be so vulnerable? To showcase one's flaws and longing for all the world? 

“For the first few years I was a little on edge about it like, ‘What if so-and-so hears and knows it’s about them,’” she recalls. “But now I’m way over that, because for me it’s the best way to connect. I’ve always loved music that is vulnerable. I’m really into honesty that way.”