Singer-songwriter Thomas Csorba had a lot of life from which to draw inspiration for Windchimes, his third studio album.
“I wrote this record during COVID, and as I was getting married, as I was finding out we were pregnant and getting ready to start a family,” Csorba told me when we spoke in February 2023. “So, a lot of the songs revolve around really like — I don’t mean this as boastful or anything, but it’s a pretty wholesome record, you know?”
Wholesome, certainly, but also gorgeously made and finely crafted — the 26-year-old Csorba, who calls Dallas home these days, decamped to Fort Worth for a spell to collaborate with Robert Ellis and Josh Block who produced these 10 tracks at Niles City Sound, and who worked with Csorba to cut the record live and largely in a single room.
“When I wanted to make this record with Robert, I told him, ‘Man, I want to do a record that is real musicians playing live on the floor. No fancy studio tricks,’” Csorba told me in 2023. “I want to make a record that people are going to want to wash dishes to, or cook to, or you know, have a conversation to.”
That vibrant, pleasurably loose feeling is evident throughout the record — “Getting to the Good Part” evokes a late summer sunset, while “Grieving Angel,” on the strength of his expressive tenor, aches with an Old Testament weariness.
Such liveliness Csorba will undoubtedly showcase during his Kessler Theater set Saturday celebrating the release of Windchimes (which dropped in mid-April earlier this year). He’ll be supported at the Oak Cliff venue by Tony Kamel and Lou Hazel.
“Modern life can make you feel like you have to prove yourself to others constantly,” Csorba said in a statement accompanying the album’s release. “I don’t know if that’s great, but it’s definitely something that’s a part of me.”
A masterful showcase for Csorba’s artistry, Windchimes is nothing if not a refutation of chasing that which only seems to matter, casting aside the fleeting surface pleasures of life for something more enduring, more satisfying and more tangible.
Thomas Csorba Windchimes release concert at Kessler Theater, Dallas. 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $22-$336.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
