Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 04:38:54 -0400 From: Jeff Keibel Subject: Cold Water Coming Kristin Hersh's second solo album, due out in early 1998, has a tracklisting verified by BillyO himself. Here it is for the curious: Home Like You Aching for You Cold Water Coming Some Catch Flies Stained Shake Hope Pale Baseball Field Heaven Gazebo Tree Gut Pageant Rock Candy Brains Cartoons JEFF KEIBEL SCARBOROUGH, ONTARIO CANADA E MAIL: redshift@interlog.com Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 08:55:52 -0500 From: Jeff Keibel Subject: Some Catch Flies > >I just realized neither one of these are 4AD, although Throwing Muses used > >to be. Please to be upset with the non 4AD question. I enjoy them both > >just the same and have from the beginning when both Tonya and Kristen > >were in Throwing Muses on 4AD. > Throwing Muses is still on 4AD outside of North America. ...as is tAnya Donelly, who is on Reprise in North America while step sis Kristin now resides on Throwing Music/Ryko. Her 4AD albums also carry the Throwing Music logo as well. Both Tanya and Kristin are still very much 4AD artists -- depending which part of the world you live in... > Next year, two releases: > > Throwing Muses - a 2 CD set containing "Throwing Muses", "Chains Changed", > their 1985 demo and 5 re-recorded songs from their 1983 > and 1984 demos. > > Kristin Hersh - "Strange Angels", her second full-length album. "Strange Angels" is out Feb. 2nd on 4AD UK and Feb. 3rd on Ryko US... > You might have missed "The Holy Single", which is also interesting solo > incidental from KH. That was on 4AD too as well as Throwing Music ...and don't forget the THIRD 1998 offering from Kristin, as quoted from ThrowingMusic.com: For some time now Kristin has wanted to make a bare-bones, intimate recording of the songs she loved as a child. Remember this is *Kristin* as a child, and as a result this collection is to be as unique as she is. Depression-era Appalachian folk songs are what she was weaned on. This'll be a selection of the old "death, destruction, depression, and one or two weird lullabies for good measure" variety. Release date and title for this collection are unknown at this time... Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 18:14:20 -0500 From: Jeff Keibel Subject: Re: Throwing Muses/Kristen Hersh Heather L Donovan wrote: > 1- I am from the states will these be readily available here? In the US, all new Throwing Muses/Kristin Hersh stuff will be readily available on Throwing Music/Rykodisc. > 2-if and when you find out release dates for Kristen Hersh's recordings > of songs from her childhood could you please post that information ? Ohhh, probably later half of '98 is my guess... This list will be a good place to look for info in that area. > 3-You say that they are still 4AD outside of the U.S. does anyone know > why? I am pretty stupid when it comes to record companies. University > and Hips and Makers say Sire and Limbo says Ryko. Are these companies > connected? If not why so many switches? Throwing Muses initially signed to 4AD in 1986, that label's first American signing. In 1987, Sire got the North American rights starting with "The Fat Skier" EP which they put out on vinyl and cassette, the same as the UK on 4AD. After "Hips And Makers" and "Strings", the band was fortunate to extricate themselves from the Sire contract, start their own label called Throwing Music with distribution from Ryko. Similarly, Tanya/Belly stayed with Sire/Reprise in North America. Throwing Muses/Kristin/Tanya are very much still under 4AD's umbrella outside North America... Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:49:45 -0500 From: drew schwickerath Subject: strange angels well, a friend of mine finally made a long promised copy of a promo of kristen hersh's "strange angels" for me. first the track listing. . home . like you . aching for you . cold water coming . some catch flies . stained . shake . hope . pale . baseball field . heaven . gazebo tree . gut pageant . rock candy brains . cartoons i've only listened to it 1+1/2 times yet, so keep that in mind as you read this. first, it is pretty standard kristen. mostly just her and her guitar (some 6- and some 12-string). a little flute or cello here and there. the lyrics are pretty much standard kristen - which is not a bad thing. (and for those whom this means anything to, it reminds me of the first time i listened to elliot smith's "roman candle" - fairly simple and yet very powerful.) this is one i will listen to a fair bit, i think that sometime this year i will retire this tape and pick it up on cd - assuming that i still feel this way in another month or so, which i expect i will. - drew Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 14:06:45 -0500 From: Scott David Anderson Subject: Re: PRO-A-3395 So I thought I would mention that I found an advance copy of "Strange Angels" at a local store for $7.99! It is encased in a simple, yet elegent white digipak and has 14 or 15 songs on it(can't remember). It is a very emotional album(reminding me at times of lisa germano, both in content and singing style) and seem to center around lies and lying. There are many references to lies and people who lie. It basically follows the form of hips and makers, but I don't think it is as good an album on a whole. I also think that hips and makers had better individual songs on it. Overall though, I am happy to have found it and do enjoy it. I think that most of you will enjoy it also. I think that the one thing that brings it down a little in my ears is the sameness of the song arrangements and (I never thought I would complain about an album being too long) it's length. Every song is acoustic guitar based with very little additional instrumentation. The songs that do feature additional instruments really stand out and help to break up the monotony(sp?) of the album. Hope this doesn't sound too negative. If I get a chance, I will post a more in-depth review of the songs. This is just my opinion based on a quick two listens. scott Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:37:07 -0500 From: Jeff Keibel Subject: Kristin Hersh Kristin Hersh releases "Strange Angels", her second solo album... "Strange angels made this planet glow" -- Shake When you first hear the most lethal combinations of voice and acoustic guitar -- Woody Guthrie, Neil Young, Nick Drake -- it's not the simplicity but the richness of what they do that bowls you over. This rare ability to put across something almost symphonically complex within a framework that's stark to the point of brutality is one that Kristin Hersh has too. That's how her second solo album "Strange Angels" -- the long-awaited follow-up to 1994's superb "Hips And Makers" -- comes to be pristine and jagged, abrasive and tender. So much has changed in the past four years. Throwing Muses, the band Kristin led for half her life, broke up in April of 1997. "We had to end ourselves," Hersh says philosophically. "It was very much against our will, and it still kind of aches, but when it stops feeding your kids you've gotta go and get another job." Or the same job, just under your own name. It would not be disrespectful to the Muses' memory to say that it was always Kristin's songs that people were listening for. And it was her almost pathological modesty that insisted on the band-ness of the whole thing when it was the Kristin-ness that people wanted. On "Strange Angels", the Kristin-ness is triumphantly to the forefront. While "Hips And Makers", now affectionately characterized by its author as "very minor key mountain girl," leavened its haunting laments and proud declarations with swathes of additional cello and the odd Michael Stipe guest vocal, the new album is propelled by the absence of such distractions. Recorded at Stable Sound in Portsmouth, Rhode Island (where HIPS was made) and at the LA studio of fellow songwriter Joe Henry, it is sparser than its illustrious predecessor, but at the same time notably more upbeat. "With "Hips And Makers", I just pretended I knew how to make an acoustic record and there it was," Kristin remembers. "This time everything seems a little more intricate and self-assured." "Chinese food and your sleeping back, we're born again losers, it's funny. Honey, you know this is not so bad, hanging around wired for sound. It's funny and sad and it's true, I 'm aching for you." -- Aching For You The fifteen songs on "Strange Angels" could almost be one, they fly so fast, so seamlessly one to the other, but focus on them individually and each has its own distinctive character. "Like You" is Abba's "Super Trooper" rearranged for a hillbilly lynch mob; "Cold Water Coming" is breath freezing as it leaves your mouth on a misty mountain morning; and "Rock Candy Brains" is a gleeful back-porch hoe-down in a whirl of sarcastic gingham. This is the work of someone who realized that playing without a band is a challenge not a cop-out. Kristin Hersh has a long history with the lone voice and guitar ideal, and her songwriting shines in stripped down environs like these. Her songs are everyday poems sprung from a life filled with kids, a husband, a house to play in, a dog to feed, dinner to make. They are also romantic odes, gleeful and dreamy, spoken from the mouth of a thirty-one year old mother of three who still knows what's what and what's funny -- get kicked in the stomach by a baby just once and the world makes real sense. "Use me I get stronger, I get weaker when you treat me like a queen." -- Stained "I wish I could say I made myself a cup of coffee, put on my lucky bathrobe and sat down at the piano with my rhyming dictionary," Kristin says with a smile, "but that's not the way my songs happen. They walk in the room of their own accord." She talks about her songs as if they have needs of their own: wouldn't that begin to get on a person's nerves after a decade and a half tending to their requirements? "Sometimes it does, but usually you don't have the ego to have nerves. When you're concerning yourself with a whole other being -- whether that be a song or a child -- your job is to serve." Another thing that's changed since 1994 is the status of the female singer-songwriter -- if not an endangered species, at least on the protected list at the time of Kristin's first solo album. With the airwaves currently all but overrun with the female graduates of the school of corporate narcissism, Hersh's scourging and unaffected talent now comes as a vital corrective. "They may think that stuff isn't barbie doll, but it is," she says worriedly, "It's Dysfunctional Barbie. And it's very scary for women -- and men -- of all ages to be seeing that as the face of womankind, because we aren't like that. We're 3D: we're broken and we're fixed and we're aware of our goofiness." Newly installed (with husband Billy and children Dylan, 11, Ryder, 6, and Wyatt,1) in a desert dream house, Kristin is as far away from the arid vacuities of the music business as she could possibly wish. Where is the house exactly? "It's in the California high desert, near Joshua Tree National Park. It's not like the desert you're used to seeing pictures of... It's like a white trash moon with huge rock piles and mountains full of coyotes and snakes and owls and roadrunners..." Does Gram Parsons' ghost come to dinner? "No, but everybody else does." "Strange Angels" tracklisting: Home Like You Aching For You Cold Water Coming Some Catch Flies Stained Shake Hope Pale Baseball Field Heaven Gazebo Tree Gut Pageant Rock Candy Brains Cartoons "Strange Angels" from Kristin Hersh is released on February 2nd in the UK by 4AD on compact disc CAD8003CD and on February 3rd in the US and Canada by Throwing Music/Rykodisc on compact disc RCD10429. In addition to Kristin's appearance at The Gavin Convention during the week of release, there will be extensive US tour dates beginning in April and running through the Fall. Watch for in-store appearances from Kristin as well. Do you live in the US and want a nifty cassette sampler for "Strange Angels"?? Go here http://www.rykodisc.com/3/features/kh/cassette.html for more information. There is a limited edition version of "Strange Angels" available from Rykodisc and available only via mail order before the release date. You can get the limited edition with the spiffy embossed booklet and an autographed poster only if you order direct from Rykodisc/Earful. Go here http://www.rykodisc.com/3/features/kh/khorder.html for details. All songs written by Kristin Hersh and published by Yes Dear Music (BMI) administered by Bug Music. Produced by Kristin Hersh. Co-produced by Joe Henry except "Like You" co-produced by Steve Rizzo. Recorded by Joe Henry and Steve Rizzo. Executive producer: Ivo Watts-Russell. Special thanks to Geoff, Carla Sacks, Collings Guitars, Melanie, Mark Leahy, Eric and Nancy, David Narcizo, Lakuna, Exene, Bill Newell, Tine, Chris and Tricia, Janine Natter, Karen Pals, Sergio and Leroy. Management: Billy O'Connell and Geoff Trump. Strange Agents: Jonathan Levine at Monterey Peninsula Artists and Jeff Craft at Fair Warning/Wasted Talent. Kristin Hersh plays Collings Guitars. Big thanks to Stephen Coyne at The Rockport Company. Design: Vaughan Oliver at v23. Photography: John Patrick Salisbury. Artwork: Shinro Ohtake. "Strange Angels" is for Billy, Dylan, Ryder, Wyatt and TM (1984-97). Thanks to Peter at Outside Music, Kristin's Canadian distributor, for providing help and information about "Strange Angels". JEFF KEIBEL TORONTO, ONTARIO CANADA E MAIL: redshift@interlog.com Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 19:21:20 +0000 From: David Thorpe Subject: Reviews of Kristin Hersh <> There have been several slightly unflattering reviews recently in the national UK press - last week's Guardian, for example, gave it a "mediocre" rating. The following reviews from the NME and Times respectively: ------cut here------------------- >From the NME 1st Feb 1998 (C) Copyright IPC Magazines AAARGH!!! A SECOND DOSE OF shrieky solo mumrock from the ex-Throwing Muses songstress whose favoured vocal style still sounds like the aural equivalent of someone gargling mouthwash while performing particularly complex vocal scales. Fun is quite clearly off the menu. Instead we get Kristin - accompanied by the lone twang of an acoustic guitar - mulling over the complexities of life amidst a barrage of meaning-riddled metaphors. Take it as read, then, that the slow-boiling strains of 'Cold Water Coming' is less about troubles with the boiler than the drug addiction of a friend; 'Stained' refers not to drink spillage following a night's carousing but to the relentless passage of time; and 'Baseball Field' is not about the day Kristin scored a home run at the high school sports day. Rather, we are in that strangest of environments: the sanitised world of the 'adult' relationship; where hate mail still has the correct postcode on it and pained silences over tea and toast become the stuff of cringingly over-earnest lyrics. Think the sound of singer-songwriter angst minus all the fire'n'brimstone and replaced by the woolly philosophy of those hippy-schtick salespeople you find in New Age shops the globe over, eager to regale you with tales of how spiritual fulfilment is impossible without a major investment in healing crystals. Highs as there are, then, come in the form of lows. The plaintive 'Pale' comes with the couplet, "You better bring your fork and knife/'Til we see eye to eye" (best not ask) while the delightfully titled 'Gut Pageant' manages to tangle some pleasant harmonising around screwball lyrics such as, "That fine fever brought us here... lambasted eyeballs" in a manner which suggests Kristin likes keeping us at a safe distance. s not, however, be blinded by such daring forays into stream-of-consciousness lyricism. This is, after all, Kristin Hersh. The difficulty comes with the fact that whereas on 1994's 'Hips And Makers' such bittersweet laments were occasionally wrapped up in a glorious rush of guitars, here they're so exposed they could almost be charged with public indecency. Plus, in a straight-laced indie-universe where the sublimely downbeat strumming of Beth Orton marks the boundaries for singer-songwriter geekiness, Kristin appears quaintly outdated. And with pop's attention span decreasing by the second, the chances of anyone but the faithful finding their way to this album seems highly improbable. "I asked him why the grass is blue and stray boys don't go home... why 4am's so screwy," she gushes on 'Gut Pageant', eyes the size of saucers, eternally lost in the midnight revelations of a teenage slumber-party. Not for the uninitiated. 4/10 Paul Moody -----------cut here---------------------------- >From the Times 1st February 1998 (C) Copyright News International KRISTIN HERSH Strange Angels 4AD CAD 8003, #13.99 SOME artists have so many talents that it's hard to keep all of them in focus. As a member of Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh drew most attention for her lyrics (so oblique they make Tori Amos's wilder efforts sound like the Postman Pat song); and some for her tendency to write music in equally odd time signatures. It was only when she made her first solo album, 1994's masterpiece, Hips and Makers, that the simple, acoustic setting allowed us to realise just how extraordinary her guitar playing is, and how powerful her voice: on her own, with an acoustic guitar, she was able to generate the same kind of dynamics as Nirvana did with the amps at 11. Hersh was, presumably, as impressed as the rest of us, because she's disbanded Throwing Muses in favour of a solo career. Strange Angels is even more stripped down than Hips and Makers, but is it as good? On initial listening it falls just short of that benchmark; but it took months of listening for Hips and Makers to reveal its depths - you'd be foolish to bet against Strange Angels doing the same. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Keibel Subject: Unsettling and Revelatory Reviewer Kim Hughes from local Toronto rag called Now gave our Kristin's new album "pick of the week" status in the latest issue dated February 19th. Now reviews are scored out of five N's... KRISTIN HERSH Strange Angels (Rykodisc) Rating: NNNN Using music to confront personal instability is a tricky proposition. Catharsis is already woefully overused as a songwriting device, and it's a rare talent who can swing it convincingly. But Kristin Hersh's stuff has always rung true, probably because it was true. While her work with Throwing Muses was immensely powerful and poetic, it wasn't until the release of her 94 solo disc, Hips And Makers, that the gloves came off. On Strange Angels, Hersh again broadsides listeners with bittersweet, surreal tales of demons and self-doubt, given only the sheerest instrumental accompaniment but delivered with absolute clarity and conviction. Remarkably offbeat imagery -- things like hygiene rituals and angular religious precepts for a start -- is at the heart of this music, with Hersh's conversational warble and unfussy delivery driving the point home more compellingly than 1,000 Lilith-approved sirens wailing at the shore. An unsettling and truly revelatory experience. from www.now.com