Following the release of her Top 40 charting album Clear Pond Road earlier this year, Throwing Muses and 50ft Wave queenpin Kristin Hersh set off on a world tour. After a jaunt round the UK, and trying to walk as often as possible in order to avoid getting run over by drivers on the wrong side of the road, Hersh landed in the basement of Brighton's Komedia venue.
Packed it was though, chock full of attentive couples and thoughtful music lovers, many of whose first gig would have been during the Pixies/Throwing muses first putsch in the late 80s. The punter next to your correspondent reported missing out on Frank Black's Nirvana-inspiring heroes in order to catch the Muses 'the first time around'.
Accompanied by the subtle, precise and bearded Cello Pete, Hersh took to the stage bang on 8pm, and proceeded to wade into her thirty-plus year-deep songbook. Your Ghost, her duet with REM's Michael Stipe from early solo album Hips and Makers got the biggest cheer of the night, with an intense Your Dirty Answer from Sunny Border Blue coming close.
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Clear Pond Road is an elegant career highlight however, with the sublime Dandelion and imagery-rich Ms Haha well-received, and both featuring the changes of pace and key change that make Hersh's songwriting so captivating. The mood was enraptured and reverent, with songs about the minutiae of life – 'crapshacks', goldfish and New Orleans cockroaches – being given the same care and attention as the post grunge-era hits.
Cello Pete in this live setting is very much the Blixa Bargeld to Hersh's Nick Cave; that old Austra-Brightonian's Skeleton Tree sound being echoed in the seagull cries and lighthouse beams of Pete's deep sawing. Hersh has long had a thousand-yard-stare on stage, through the audience and to the horizon beyond the limits of any venue.
Her rich, multi-layered writing, synesthesia (hearing sounds as colours) and self-contained, almost fantastical world suit a dry-iced basement on a blustery Sunday night perfectly. Let's hope Kristin Hersh escapes the morning cockroaches to manage to cross the Atlantic once again - with full band, duo or solo, she remains a unique sound and presence, and an internal whirlpool of song.
Clear Pond Road available here: