Throwing Muses – Sun Racket

Fire

It is hard to believe that Kristin Hersh and David Narcizo have been playing together now for over thirty-five years. 1985 was the year of that extraordinary debut that reset the expectations of female rock bands, and it has been thirty-five years of that visceral rollercoaster that is Kristin’s psyche: the automatic writing, those songs as an expression of a connection to humanity that seemed at times to be at breaking point. That voice from croakey croon to heart-rending yowl, often on the edge of understanding, but always gripping our heartstrings. telling stories and rendering images, often uncomfortable, sometimes surreal but always essential.

It is extraordinary that this is only the tenth Throwing Muses album, but when you take into account a similar number of solo albums plus the 50 Foot Wave stuff, Kristin has still been a busy person and with all the CASH organisation and the fact that she must spend a lot of time on the road, music really is a prime factor in her life.

This is the first Throwing Muses album in seven years and the first in the wake of Kristin’s divorce. It feels like a culmination of all those years of striving, as if she is taking charge and using the overloaded guitar and creaking voice to undertake some cathartic bloodletting. Apart from a couple of instances, this album is a series of succinct sketches that are populated by the sheer force of Kristin’s voice and her writhing guitar, with Bernard Georges and David happy to sit back and gently propel the songs while Kristen inhabits and coerces in equal measure, be they distorted blasts or dark lullabies. It is as if the songs force her to inhabit different characters and that acting takes its toll on the voice.

There is a violent, unhinged edge to opener “Dark Blue” and Kristin sounds as if she is singing through broken teeth on “Upstairs Dan”, the voice sounding ravaged and tired. Elsewhere though, the years are turned right back to the Hunkpapa era on “Maria Laguna”, where she sounds youthful yet bleached out. It is quite a feat.

The voice is always unmistakable but the ferocity of the music is not always so. The dark noisy insistence of “Dark Blue” echoes some of the 50 Foot Wave material, while the abrupt distorted sounds of “Bo Diddley Bridge” hide an odd time signature that gives David a little hop and a skip, and then descends into what sounds like a piano and cello coda as Kristin asks with “The bridge collapsing, the water winning, who’s swimming?” The devastation of New Orleans clearly left a mark. On the multi-layered “Milk at McDonald’s”, a scree of guitar feedback obscures the gentleness of a rather pretty track, while the overloaded nature of the guitar on “St Charles” just seems to burst from the speakers. The drums are really taut and tense, and there is even an odd little Tom Verlaine-style guitar solo.

It isn’t all throat-grabbing though. The reverb-filled lullaby of “Upstairs Dan” is lovely, but its sweetness really highlights the awkward fuzzy voice, while the final track “Sue’s” merges piano with a milky hypnotic guitar that lulls in a really unexpected and rather welcome way. It is good to know that some things don’t change though, as when Kristin sings “Then I wake and see your smiling smile”, she sounds disbelieving, as if it couldn’t truly happen to her. This is when you just love her for her perceived weaknesses that are just a different sort of strength, and it feels the same when “Kay Catherine” starts “I broke off a piece of your terrible secret”. It is so her and so unique to her that you just kind of fall in love again and dig out the back catalogue to make some comparisons.

Sun Racket is a strong return, but one that causes you to sit and ponder, even while you are being bludgeoned and cajoled in equal measure. I love that Kristin Hersh keeps on keeping on, and that each time she returns there is something fresh yet familiar to behold. There is something for everyone here and long may that continue.

-Mr Olivetti-