Clear Pond Road

KRISTIN HERSH Shone In The Darkness With Her Entrancing Solo Set In Brugge, Belgium

Posted on by JL

KRISTIN HERSH
Brugge, Belgium.
25 April 2024

Although I was sitting on the first row in the middle, just in front of Hersh‘s sheeny eyes shining in the dark, I closed my eyes for at least half of the set. It felt then as if Kristin was actually playing/singing inside my head, really. Her singular, slightly hoarse voice and her elegant and exquisite acoustic guitar play were even closer than they already were.

Solo, without any visual or electrically charged distractions on the podium, the audience was totally focused on Hersh. I’ve been to countless concerts, big and small, in my life but
I never experienced such a trance-like silence.

Hersh‘s setlist was a mix of Throwing Muses songs and solo ones, including a couple
of last year’s arresting Clear Pond Road album. Except for that magic pearl Your Ghost (feat. REM’s Michael Stipe) from her 1994 solo debut LP Hips And Makers the setlist wasn’t a ‘best of’ whatsoever. I guess her heart and soul picked the songs.

In between magnific musical moments, Hersh showed her talent for being a deadpan sit-down comedian. Her stories about a goldfish with a mustache named Freddie Mercury, about getting crazy over flies and mice in the house instead of searching for a home in nature, and about the rude songs her parents sung to her as a kid were actually hilarious and fitted in perfectly in the whole performance.

A special artist, a special night in a special town.

CLEAR POND ROAD


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Kristin Hersh: Story – Solo Albums – Instagram

New KRISTIN HERSH Album ‘CLEAR POUND ROAD’ Out On September 8 – Hear All 3 Singles Here

Posted on by JL

22 Augustus 2023


(Press photo via Fire records)

The stirring Throwing Muses legend KRISTIN HERSH has her new solo LP,
titled CLEAR POUND ROAD on 8 September. Pre-order info here. She will
tour the UK/IRE and AUS next Fall/Winter. All dates here.

Fire Records: “Kristin Hersh’s new album is a cinematic road trip; a series of personal
vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming
strings and mellotron. It’s a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts
and inspirational thinking; an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time.”

Kristin Hersh: “Sweeter, sadder, and somehow no less alive. Some records demand
to be made. And you know this is the case when the songs function as systems in a body.
I octavized an acoustic baritone as the skeleton, cellos are the lungs, a Nashville-strung Collings and glockenspiel were the fingertips feeling around in this weird-ass dark space, and drums are always your heart, of course… but the vocals are a strange narrator here. A narrator lost
in the story, of all things, more like eyes.”

Three singles (so far)
came our ears’ way.

– DANDELION –
Fragile and romantic. Marianne Faithful.
Acoustic melancholia with weeping violins.

– MS HAHA –
“Mr Bones is my man and Ms Haha is me, ripped
off from a Truman Capote story. So heavy. Love is
goofy gravity.”

Not really sure what Hersh is talking/singing about
here, but I do love the song’s subtle, catchy groove.

– CONSTANCE STREET –

“I lived on Constance Street in New Orleans when that song’s story happened.
Buying slips in the Irish Channel/broken prince in fluorescent camo is a very
Southern day. I was born a hick and I guess I’ll always be one.”

It’s not the first time that I think that Hersh
loves Bob Dylan‘s enigmatic imagery, and uses
it too in her own poetic storytelling way.

KRISTIN HERSH: Facebook – Instagram

KRISTIN HERSH Launches New Solo Album ‘CLEAR POND ROAD’ In September – Today The First Pearly Eyes Single ‘DANDELION’

Posted on by JL

Daily electricity to load your batteries

1 June 2023

The wonderful Throwing Muses lady KRISTIN HERSH has announced the release of a new solo album, baptized CLEAR POUND ROAD. It’ll land on 8 September. Pre-order info here . She will tour the UK/IRE and AUS next Fall/Winter. All dates here.

Fire Records: “Kristin Hersh‘s new album is a cinematic road trip. A series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming strings and mellotron. It’s a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking; an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time. It continous the juxtaposition of dark and light–dark sunshine, as Hersh puts it, that characterizes Hersh’s legendary work with Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave but goes even further inward as it explores the intimacy and complexity that sits alongside Hersh’s fierce independence”

Kristin Hersh: “Sweeter, sadder, and somehow no less alive. Some records demand
to be made. And you know this is the case when the songs function as systems in a body.
I octavized an acoustic baritone as the skeleton, cellos are the lungs, a Nashville-strung Collings and glockenspiel were the fingertips feeling around in this weird-ass dark space, and drums are always your heart, of course… but the vocals are a strange narrator here. A narrator lost
in the story, of all things, more like eyes.”

Along with the (great) news, we get a first taster, titled DANDELION.

Soul-stirring musing. Smooth violins, tender melody. Starry-eyed vocals.
Fragile and romantic. Marianne Faithful. Acoustic melancholia. Bright yellow
flower. Counting forwards. Pearly eyes. Not dirty. Poetic affectionateness.
Candlelight dreaming. Whispering silence in motion for shadowy moments.

Stream/buy.


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KRISTIN HERSH: Facebook – Instagram