Songs of catharsis

Kristin Hersh runs the emotional gamut on Learn to Sing Like a Star
By ANDREA FELDMAN  |  December 2, 2008
070216_inside_hersh
NO DAY AT THE BEACH: “I find water very, very destructive,” Hersh says.

London’s Soho Arts Theatre is a tiny, buttoned-up venue in the heart of that city’s venerable theatre district. Inside, the sold-out crowd is reverent and hushed as Kristin Hersh takes the stage. Blinking in the spotlight, Kristin is strangely still. But as soon as she opens her mouth to sing, the air crackles with energy. And it’s not simply from the song’s rollicking, furious immediacy, or its vertiginous chorus, or even the way the strings surge dramatically against the lacerating guitar. No, it’s the way her voice evokes so many emotions at once: feral and wise, burning with both vulnerability and fearlessness — a blast of emotional intensity akin to an exorcism.

The sound is bright, messy, and beautiful, and it lights up the dark room.
 
That searing intensity is familiar to anyone who has followed Hersh’s work since her early days as the teenaged leader of Newport-based band Throwing Muses. Since then, her emotionally complex, allusive confessionals have earned her a well-deserved reputation as a gifted songwriter. The ensuing years have not mellowed her in any way — even if appearances are somewhat to the contrary. When I meet up with Hersh the next day at her hotel, she is curled up on an overstuffed chair, hands wrapped resolutely around a cup of hot tea.
 
She looks a little tired, and admits that this is the first day she hasn’t felt the effects of jet lag. “Today’s the first okay day. We went right to work. You’re supposed to take a day off, and we didn’t!” She laughs. “Not a lot of autopilot on a new record . . . .”

Make that not a lot of autopilot, period. Since the release of Hersh’s previous solo record, this generally indefatigable mother of four has been a flurry of creative activity, doing mini-tours with Throwing Muses, recording and touring with her other band, math-rock trio 50 Foot Wave, and working on the follow-up to Murder, Misery and Goodnight, her collection of Appalachian murder ballads.
 
And now there’s Learn To Sing Like a Star (Yep Roc). Look beyond the tongue-in-cheek title (the subject line of a spam e-mail that kept popping up in Hersh’s inbox), and you’ll find a bright, bittersweet album influenced by some tumultuous events in Hersh’s life. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated her former home-away-from-home, New Orleans. Months later, a burst pipe destroyed Hersh and husband/manager Billy O’Connell’s Ohio home. It’s no wonder that Learn to Sing is rife with references to angry water.
 
“I grew up by a scary ocean,” Hersh explains. “I find water very, very destructive. Other people think of the beach as lying around — I think of it as frightening hurricanes! And then with all that happened — New Orleans and our house . . . Two floors flooded. The ceiling collapsed. I lost all my instruments. We lost 2000 books. Our furniture. And even stuff we couldn’t throw away, because we couldn’t bear it . . . it’s still covered in mold. We smell like mold, all of us!" 

1  |  2  |  3  |   next >
Related: Hersh's bar, Counting backwards, A muse amused, More more >
  Topics: Music Features , Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses, Billy O'Connell,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY ANDREA FELDMAN
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REELIN’ ’N’ ROCKIN’  |  February 06, 2008
    Deer Tick singer John McCauley’s lived-in anthems harken back to the old-school traditions of Nashville, a boozy world of dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music.
  •   DAYS LIKE THIS  |  December 11, 2007
    It’s hardly your typical rock ’n’ roll saga.
  •   PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY  |  November 27, 2007
    Though you don’t need to know anything about Elvis Perkins’s colorful and, at times, deeply tragic family history to appreciate his debut album, significant details can’t help but call out to you.
  •   SUSTAINABLE SOUNDS  |  July 10, 2007
    For every high-gloss record label driven primarily by commercial concerns, there are any number of smaller-scale labels putting beautiful sounds out into the ether.
  •   FOO!APALOOZA  |  July 10, 2007
    What began life as the comparatively modest Fool’s Ball has mutated into an unruly (but lovable) behemoth.

 See all articles by: ANDREA FELDMAN