Charlotte Cornfield - Could Have Done Anything

It’s been less than two years since Highs in the Minuses became Charlotte Cornfield’s break-out—a magnetic mission-statement for the Toronto songwriter described by Rolling Stone as “Canada’s best-kept secret.” Cornfield emerged from pandemic seclusion with new fans, raised expectations, and her first major US tour. She could have kept touring forever; she could have fled to the woods with a four-track. She could have done anything. What she did was jump into an old Subaru, driving seven hours south to the Hudson Valley. The car didn’t have any A/C; she had only recently earned her license; and she had never met the producer she was driving down to meet. But when Cornfield arrived in Hurley, NY, at the red-steepled church that is now Dreamland Recording Studios, she was ready for whatever came next. “There was this letting go of some of the strongheaded-ness that I think I used to have,” she says, “and an embracing of the open-endedness of life.”

 Cornfield had come to Hurley to work with producer Josh Kaufman, thrilled by his sublime recordings with Cassandra Jenkins, Anais Mitchell and his own band, Bonny Light Horseman. The album they’d now make together, Could Have Done Anything, is a testament to Cornfield’s uncommon life and all its possibilities, an acknowledgment that the best musicians can turn fleeting moments into timeless songs. Over nine magnetic tracks, the singer-songwriter begins yet another chapter: gazing in the rear-view to understand where she’s been; squinting through the sunset to see what’s ahead. Calmer than I was, she sings in the album’s final moments. Stronger than I was / older than I was / less angry than I was…—and finally—happier than I was / happier than I was / happier than I was…

 Whereas Cornfield’s preceding albums were made in familiar settings, with troupes of friends, her latest long-player reaches into the unknown. Kaufman and Cornfield (who went to school for jazz drums) played every instrument themselves, from ringing guitars to cozy piano, Hammond B3, pedal steel and synthesizers. Together with engineer D. James Goodwin (Kevin Morby, Whitney) and assistant engineer Gillian Pelkonen, the pair worked swiftly, impulsively, trying to shrink the gap between having an idea and putting it on tape. The resulting sound is at once elaborate and unrehearsed; there’s a sense that it’s coming together—and coming alive—at the very moment it’s being made.