Blowin' Indie Wind "The Grotto"-Bare, Bleak, and Beautiful

Author: Erika Mercer

Picture a barren winter landscape: a field masked in snow, several solitary brown, lifeless blades of grass poking through its top white layer.
A gray sky and a row of leaning, drooping trees complete the stark, desolate scene -- a scene which threatens to be too stark and cold to endure, yet narrowly escapes the unbearable through its subtle glimpses of vitality.
Late in the day, the snow sparkles silver, tosses glistening bits of light into the viewer's eyes. The wind is soft and gentle, meandering its way between the branches of the trees, coaxing them to rise in salute. Small footprints of brave animals traverse the field, zigzagging playfully across its length.
Kristin Hersh's breathy voice evokes this scene with its haunting ambience and stark climate and is supplemented by her somber, unadorned guitar playing and minimalist piano and string accompaniment -- effects which have been brought to near perfection on her most recent album, "The Grotto."
Hersh's career has spanned three decades -- born in Rhode Island in 1966, she fell in love with the guitar at age nine and formed her first band at age 14. Her passion for music led her to pioneer the rock band Throwing Muses in 1984 together with her half sister, Tanya Donelly (now of the Grammy-award-nominated band, Belly).
Yet following financial difficulties, the band broke up in 1997 after the release of its album, "Limbo." This monetary struggle overlapped with Hersh's own struggle with mental illness -- factors which no doubt influenced the change in approach she took with her solo work.
Much quieter, barer and moodier, her solo work is the polar opposite of the loud, alternative, punk-influenced sounds of the band. It is difficult to believe that her first solo release, "Hips and Makers," debuted in 1994, when she was still working closely with Throwing Muses,"though Hersh describes her stark solo sound as "a different side of the same coin."
Quirky and introspective, Hersh's solo work -- what she wittily refers to as her "day job" -- took some getting used to, especially by those who had come to know her as the loud Throwing Muses vocalist. Following "Hips and Makers," Hersh released five albums in quick succession: "Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight" and "Strange Angels" in 1998, "Sky Motel" in 1999, "Sunny Border Blue" in 2001 and her most recent album, "The Grotto," just released March 4, 2003. Incidentally, the release of "The Grotto," will coincide with Throwing Muses' self-titled album featuring a guest performance by Donelly, which follows a seven-year hiatus.
"The Grotto," named after the Providence, R.I., neighborhood where Hersh lived at the time when she wrote the album's songs, is a collection of shifting scenes that hovers somewhere between the realms of imagined and seen -- one critic aptly described the music as "phantasmagoric."
Hersh's sound is deceivingly simple while embodying a hidden complexity of tender, frightening and unsettling emotions. Referring to "The Grotto," Hersh stated, "I think it's a very sweet record. Spooky, but sweet." This juxtaposition of spookiness and sweetness defines her music and allows it to be poignant in its confrontation of difficult human emotions and situations.
Hersh's lyrics complement her raw music: she sings of marriage, of madness, of survival and salvation. Bare and often arranged as a stream-of-consciousness, her words flow together in a gentle yet disturbing way. In the song, "Ether," she sings, "I thought the city air would hear me whisper / when the blue expanse of morning comes / you sleep while I stalk the sun, like a baby."
Softly plucked guitar notes and faint, background violin music -- played by guest musician Andrew Bird of the now defunct Squirrel Nut Zippers -- weave in and out of these expressive lyrics.
At the same time, Hersh's taut vocals fluctuate between minor and major tones, dipping in and out of moods, becoming sinister and then suddenly sugary, frightened and then confident.
Again referring to the haunting quality of her music, one critic wrote that Hersh's voice is that of "a child possessed by adult demons."
Hersh's music never breaks out of its dark, brooding tone, yet it also never sinks too deeply into its own despair -- she provides the listener with glimpses of hope, whether that glimpse be in the form of delicate piano notes (performed on "The Grotto" by Howe Gelb of "Giant Sand"), gently rising violin music or lyrics which, despite their expression of doubt and defeat, also offer the possibility of redemption: in the song, "Vitamins V," Hersh sings, "This lukewarm catastrophe / is a recipe for rebirth / or so I overheard."
The view is austere and barren, but not altogether hopeless -- Hersh promises that there is beauty to be found in even the seemingly bleakest of human situations.