I Think That I Might Love You

 

I Think That I Might Love You is my sister Carla's fifth solo album. When you add in the TeenCanteen and Poster Paints albums, she has built up quite a discography since the summer and fall of 2016 when she released debut album Homemade Lemonade (originally under the guise of Ette) and Say It All With A Kiss (TeenCanteen) in quick succession.

This, at least for me, is Carla's best album. It's warm, melodic, there is lots of space, it's beautifully produced, sounds lovingly organic, great people play on it and it's Carla's first album since she started playing guitar. 

Carla and her amazing band play The Rum Shack in Glasgow on Friday 29th May - Tickets For further dates in London, Leeds and Manchester visit carlajennifereaston.com/

Read on for a feature length review and some words from Carla.

Carla - It started with a 'f*ck it' flight to Nashville. 

I'd been told about 'fuck it' flights. When everything is broken, and you have nothing left to give, you do something entirely for yourself. A selfish act, if you will. 

You point to a place on the world map that you've always wanted to go but held yourself back from, and you go. You worry about the cost later. The immediate place that came to my mind was Nashville.

Trips to the Stax Museum, Third Man Records, borrowing equipment, playing the Bluebird Cafe, recording demos, riding electric scooters round town, hanging with old friends from Banff Arts Centre ... the 'f*ck it' trip was productive! 

Carla - I left Nashville whole again, with voice notes and notebooks that held the beginnings of new songs. Those songs became an album.

Working on ideas with friends in Glasgow and online with friends from further field, Carla created an album. Meeting so many amazing women through Since Yesterday, her award winning documentary led to Carla picking up (and learning) the guitar.  There was only one person Carla wanted to produce the album - Howard Bilerman; friend, mentor and producer of her Impossible Stuff album. Amazingly, Howard was up for flying over to produce the album in CHEM19! What a guy!

I was fortunate to enjoy an early morning game of tennis at the Gorbals with Howard and visit the studio a couple of times during his time in Scotland. His relaxed attitude and ability to create the right atmosphere to capture performances was remarkable. Howard has a fantastic ear for sound.

It's not often you play tennis with a Grammy nominated producer ... in The Gorbals Leisure Centre!

CHEM19 was booked for a week and the band literally ran through each song a couple of times before Howard hit record. A couple of times, he hit record on second play.

As a result, there is a beautiful freshness throughout the whole album, whether it's the zip of Oh Yeah, or the melancholic glow of You Might Be The Sun. 

Carla - This album is friendship. And community. It's celebrating, remembering, and letting go all at once. It's all those connections that surround us all the time if we just open ourselves up to seeing them.

Oh Yeah bursts immediately into life, it's bittersweet power-pop ache in under 2-minutes. Carla and band lost in the music.

Carla - Oh Yeah is the sound of loving someone who doesn’t quite love you back, of giving anyway. Knowing the cost and paying the price with a defiant smile. Beauty with a bruise underneath. Reaching outward, leaning forward, heart wide open, and hoping to be caught.

It’s not bitter, it’s brave, letting yourself glow for someone even if they are half a step away. Big Teenage Fanclub guitars, huge strings, harmonies stacked like confessions you never quite say out loud. It’s standing in your bedroom, heart pounding, replaying voice notes that don’t say what you hope they will, and still pressing play again. 

If Oh Yeah bursts into life, Red Kites In The Sun pulses beautifully, building to the chorus that gave Carla the album title. Stevie Jackson from Belle & Sebastian add harmonica, and all of a sudden things are driven by a pounding Motown beat.

There is more urgency with Never Really Wanted To Say which transcends towards the heavens, with sublime string effects lifting the chorus.

Older

Doesn't mean I'm wiser

I keep falling

In and out of love

Pillars Crash Down is gorgeously melancholic, but with real fire. A warm melody, one of Carla's finest vocal performances. I love the line; 

We walk together, the radio playing

But it was never our song

Pounding drums kick in for the chorus that ends with optimism;

There'll be another summer that calls, me around

Then there is a breakdown (below) that leads back to the spine tingling chorus with that glorious tinge of hope in the final line.

A tonne of feathers is still a tonne

So I'll fly

Alone

Away, from you

Away, from you

Although this is a guitar led album, there is room for deliciously sugary and gooey synth pop in the shape of Let's Make Plans For The Weekend. What a delight! I first heard this when Carla played a show for Tiny Changes at the Old Hairdressers and it was a blast. Brilliant pop music. Loads of hooks, I mean listen a few times and count them! Humour, cheek and the honest reflection on how good it is to go out dancing with friends on the weekend.

The double chorus is sensational pop;

So lets make plans for the weekend, weekend

Take my hand tell me what you're scheming

Everybody drinking, no sleeping

Friday nights were made for feeling

Up all night and my heart is racing

Reach that high that we're always chasing

Chemical reaction, so amazing

Me and you are trouble making

And I love this section;

We don't care, we don't care anymore

If we're out there, we're out there on the floor

Carla - I love this song so much. I knew the album was leaning more toward guitar indie-pop, but I couldn’t NOT include this. My friend Pedro Cameron (Man of the Minch) and I wrote and demoed it in two hours; we’re both massive fans of Kylie Minogue and Girls Aloud. We wanted to write something that celebrates friendship, dancing, and that feeling you chase every weekend after a hard week. 

It’s the token synth-pop banger on the album, the guilty pleasure, the one that gets you dragging your friend onto the dancefloor.

You Might Be The Sun is all stripped back, gooey, romantic, reflective ... One of Carla's most beautiful songs? At the time of writing, I very much think so. 

I know you didn't mean it when you took all of your light away

I guess I'll never see it but I feel the glimmer anyway 

Really, Really, Really, Really Sad is a co-write with Darren Hayman and Carla's love of 60's girls groups shines brightly. Vivid imagery topped with a catchy and sugary chorus. 

Lift Your Head Up Kid has all kinds of Juliana Hatfield with The Lemonheads moments of wonder, warmth and wistfulness. 

Start It Again also oozes warmth, reflection and advice. The sound is absolutely spot on - band, producer and studio all working in complete harmony. Blissful.

Don't wait until the right time

It can take a lifetime

Moth To A Flame is one of my favourite songs from the album. I love the melody, the imagery, the way the backing vocals come in for the no they don't, no they don't, no they don't section. The strings are beautiful

Like moths to a flame

I'm sometimes seeking out the pain

If You Found A Thread is a gorgeous closing song, the guitars chime at times and there are echoes of George Harrison as the song closes as Carla sings I'll wind my way back to you.

Carla - The song my friend and I wrote together in Nashville, the song that began this journey, holds that feeling more than anything.

A personal memory from just before Carla recorded the album;

Back in October 2024 Carla played a show at Cottiers Theatre in the West End of Glasgow, supporting Norman Blake. It was just Carla and her great friend Paul Kelly on guitars. They ran through the songs that they were going into CHEM19 with and I was blown away. After Norman's show we went through to the bar and drank whisky - something I very rarely do. But I was in the mood for a catch up and happy on the high of live music, so Carla chose a nice whisky - mainly because she was choked with the cold - and we had a couple, or was it three?! Anyway, it was lovely to just chat about music. The excitement of Howard coming over, going into CHEM19 for the first time, her friends coming to play on the album and the forthcoming Since Yesterday Glasgow premiere. It was all going on! So I love this happy (whisky fuelled) picture of the two of us from that night in Cottiers.