Wren Carpenter - Charmed, I'm Sure
Bee Delores proclaims Wren Carpenter "a beautiful force of nature" on their EP of sparkling demos Charmed, I'm Sure.
"And I'm driving to the airport, just surviving," Wren Carpenter flutters in the opening song, "Broken Bow," a hopeful and exuberantly played tune that imparts wisdom about worth and impact. "On the dashboard is a letter my mother wrote to me / It says: 'Darling, don't belittle who you are / Why, you're a star / There's a billion folks just dying to feel something,'" sings Carpenter. The song centers the singer-songwriter's latest EP, Charmed, I'm Sure, as both a delicate showpiece and a pounding statement about self.
The title track, perhaps Carpenter's best song, finds them lamenting their luck finally running out. It brims with tears, yet a yearning still sparkles in their eyes. "I'm calling on every falling star I see," they pray. The acoustic guitar serves as their duet partner throughout much of the album, a vehicle by which Carpenter unpacks the various chests of her soul. Their matter-of-fact songwriting rings charming and poetic. Even as they flip through dark, crinkled pages of their life, as they do with songs such as "No Children: Revisited" and "Oregon."
Carpenter is a beautiful force of nature. Their arrangements across Charmed, I'm Sure are not unlike a babbling brook winding down the mountain and leaving gentle whispers as faint remnants that they were, in fact, here. "Calm your wandering hearts / It never got me anywhere but backroads and bars," they pen in the final song, "Stone Walls & Sound." There's a restlessness that Carpenter excavates from within, pours out onto paper, and then transmits to the world.
Charmed, I'm Sure is a stroll through the wilderness, with only yourself to keep you company. It's a meditative storyboard that makes damn sure the listener knows Wren Carpenter's name. And they'll be all you talk about.
