Public Servant Lifestyle

Brand new sounds from Throwing Muses songwriter Kristin Hersh, on a new mini-album and live download from 4AD.

Bug & the 'Crocodile Café live download album, by 50 Foot Wave

Kristin Hersh - the woman who has fronted Boston’s quite extraordinary Throwing Muses (of Firepile, Shark, Two Step and countless other outstanding, criminally underexposed tunes) in all it’s guises - comes through once more, with a new band, a whole new mini-album - and now an official 'live' concert download.

Get ready for the flood. Pictured (right): Bernard Georges, Rob Ahlers and Kristin Hersh: 50 Foot Wave, photographed by Lisa Fletcher.

In a career full of busy years, 2003 stands out as a very busy year for Kristin Hersh. In March of last year Hersh put out not one, but two full-length releases - The Grotto, her fifth solo record and an all-new Throwing Muses record for the first time in seven years. Add to that the birth of her fourth son (Bodhi), months of touring, a cross-country move, and the formation of her first new band since she began making music with Throwing Muses famously touring the UK with The Pixies as support!) in the early eighties: 50 Foot Wave.

This new band - consisting of Kristin, Throwing Muses bassist Bernard Georges, and drummer Rob Ahlers - sounds like nothing she's done before, but listening to the two records released in 2003, it's possible to see how she got there.

The NME said: "Although the world crossed its legs in frenzied anticipation of the Pixies reunion...there's some alumni of the 4AD school of indie who never lost it. Take Kristin Hersh: her album last year with Throwing Muses doggedly refused to revisit past glories and instead shot off in a fantastic new direction...There's none of the artistic trappings of middle-age on serrated emotional thunderstorms such as Dog Days; Hersh plays her shrieking wind-tunnel guitar all punked-up and vicious, and drummer Rob Ahlers hits the skins with the force and precision of a young Dave Grohl. The only problem is that six tracks just aren't enough."

The Grotto

The last album, the eponymous Throwing Muses, was the work of a musician clearly delighted to be reunited with her electric guitar and her band. The angular, furious songs on that record were shot through with rock-goddess guitar-work and were both a return to the band's roots and a jumping off point for something new altogether. The Grotto showed us a woman profoundly in control of her music - each sound as well as each silence. 50 Foot Wave’s Bug takes that exquisite control and infuses it with an energetic intensity. The urgency and freshness of these songs is palpable in Hersh’s latest incarnation – in the form of a 50 Foot Wave rock-assault.

Throwing Muses' dark, jagged sound had its roots in the musical outpourings of a young woman at war with herself, giving release to the songs that plagued her. An astonishing twenty years into her musical career, Kristin is writing new songs for a decidedly new band, one that springs out of her experience and her power. Listening to the first blistering 50 Foot Wave songs, it's clear; this is still war but now she's winning.

50 Foot Wave is propelled by the race car engine of Kristin's guitar and her explosive, feral vocals. Bernard's bass, as always, is a muscle, undulating through Kristin's wall of sound. Ahlers drumming is ferocious and unbridled, at once supporting and keeping pace with Kristin's driving and relentless sound. The trio are tight and powerful, creating music that is precise, emotional and seemingly on the edge of control.

Live Experience

Built from the ground up to be an overwhelming live experience, 50 Foot Wave plans to tour extensively, playing upwards of 100 shows a year in the US alone. Additionally, rather than the standard music-business cycle of a full-length CD every 2 years or so, the band plans to self-release 5 or 6 song recordings every nine months. This approach complements the band’s energetic and urgent sound.

Hersh explains: “The current state of the music business leaves us with fewer choices. A band can’t just release a record and wait for the fans to ‘show up’. Independent radio has been all but wiped out and independent retail is in even bigger trouble, so it’s pretty simple really. Without radio we have to be the broadcast, without retail we have to be the means of distribution. Both of those realities mean that comprehensive touring is no longer optional, but required for a band that wants to play an active rather than a passive role in their own business.”

The Observer said of the mini-album: "Thanks to a Pixies reunion there's been a scholarly interest in the sound of Boston in the late Eighties recently. A good time, then, to spare a thought for Kristin Hersh, erstwhile force of nature in Boston's excellent Throwing Muses...anyone nostalgic for the Hersh who raged and whirled while playing bold electric guitar will find much to savour here...breakneck songs like Long Painting or Glory Weed have a Pixies-ish warp to them, the result of shared heritage rather than homage."

The truth is that this new mini album features six of the most urgent and powerful songs that this singular songwriter has ever recorded - bring on the long-player.

The full track listing for this 19 minutes and 40 seconds worth of ‘Wave looks like this:

1. Bug
2. Clara Bow
3. Long Painting
4. Glory Weed
5. Lavender
6. Dog Days

Live ‘Bootleg’

To celebrate the recent European tour – and the imminent (we hope – it’s been promised for the start of next year) arrival of the next 50 Foot Wave mini-album, the band’s label, 4AD has taken the unusual step of putting a ‘bootleg’ of one of their US shows earlier this year onto their site, for Kristin Hersh fans to download. This set contains songs taped at the Crocodile Cafe venue in Seattle in 22 April 2004 – and six of them have yet to appear anywhere else!

As anyone who caught one of the band’s taught, muscular UK shows in September will attest, live 50 Foot Wave make a racket that’s all their own. Touches of the ‘Muses at their stormiest best merge with Kristin’s always striking vocals to produce a sound that (if the venue’s PA is up to it) goes right down into the ear. Music to make your soul ping.

The complete track listing for the Crocodile Café ‘bootleg’ album is:

1. Bug
2. Petal
3. Long Painting
4. Lavender
5. Glory Weed
6. Sally Is A Girl
7. Bone China
8. Ginger Park
9. Dog Days
10. Clara Bow
11. Golden Ocean
12. Diving
13. In The Air
14. El Dorado

Kristin Hersh, a selected discography

As Kristin Hersh

The Grotto (’03)
Hips & Makers
Strange Angels
Sunny Border Blue
Live at Noe Valley Ministry (double live)
Sky Motel

As Throwing Muses:

Throwing Muses (’93)
Live In Providence (’91)
House Tornado/The Fat Skier (re-issued ’93)
In A Doghouse (’98)
Limbo (’96)
University (’95)
The Curse (’92)
Red Heaven (’92)
The Real Ramona (’91)
Hunkpapa (’89)

Bug by 50 Foot Wave is available now, as a CD and digital download (direct from 4AD’s website). For more information, take a look at the ‘Muse/Hersh web community site at: www.throwingmusic.com. Well worth checking out for 50 Foot Wave, 'Muses and Kristin Hersh fans is the band's 'free music' section - which contains around fourteen tracks to download and enjoy for free.

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