Arguably best known as a member of Sons of an Illustrious Father, with whom she’s toured with since she was 17, Lilah Larson is embarking on a solo career with the release of her full-length solo debut Pentimento slated for release in early 2017. Recorded at Montreal‘s Hotel2Tango Studios with Howard Bilerman, who has worked with Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Vic Chesnutt, the album is reportedly comprised of intimate meditations on deeply conflicted and confusing love, relationships long since failed and their lingering ghosts of ache and regret, in which Larson accompanies her vocals with drums, guitar, and a 19th century pump organ. Pentimento‘s first single “tbh” is a bittersweet yet ambivalent lament in which the song’s conflicted narrator misses and longs for a lover, who simultaneously makes her feel miserable and uncertain, and it evokes a dysfunctional relationship in which there’s an equally ambivalent and maddening push and pull — the sort of push and pull that’s better and maybe more exciting than a relationship that just peters out to its inevitable and crushing conclusion.
While featuring a sparse arrangement of Larson her vocals with strummed acoustic guitar, the focus is squarely on the singer/songwriter’s aching yet proud vocals singing heartbreakingly honest lyrics that expresses the wounded and confused psyche of someone desperately in love and yet kind of hates every single moment of it.