Carson McHone's Pentimento is an audacious and rewarding record. It asks: How can love and beauty exist in the presence of brutality? Disquietingly. Dissonantly. Against its shadow and bearing its mark. This is what McHone and her collaborators capture on Pentimento with the subtlety of watercolor painting and the richness of verse, in ghost vocals and child voices alike. Every layer is a universe unto itself, revealing the pulse that animates McHone’s creative drive. Arranged here and expressed as a whole, it constitutes a masterpiece.