The Grotto [CD]

Kristin Hersh has released six solo albums now, all strikingly different from both each other and her more known work with Throwing Muses. This stand strongly at almost the very forefront of her music. Where, exactly, I could not say for I am a rampant fan of her work and my bias changes on almost every listen to her albums. What is for sure is that this is one of the very finest.

At first listen I was struck most by how sparse, how bleak, how almost grim the songs sound. It took several listens for my ears to properly translate it to my brain, but afterwards both my brain and my heart were in rapture. The down-trodden, lacy beauty of tracks like 'Deep Wilson', 'SRB' and 'Silver Sun' were the first I felt that I 'got', but the rest soon followed.

Few of the songs here have big, catchy choruses. In fact, none do. The instrumentation is limited to acoustic guitar, piano and violin. Between them they create a sound that is absolutely other-worldly. Kristin's voice wraps around her guitar like a watchful, emotional mother looking over her child, on 'Deep Wilson'. Fragments of bewitching scenes and moments are sung of, seemingly random but all strange and striking. Both down-heartening and oddly up-lifting at the same time, its wonders cannot be easily put into words other than through the use of impressed superlatives.

'Arnica Montana' is a tougher tune, piano and violin playing along with a strongly strummed guitar in a way approaching jazz, or blues, but not in any way typically heard. After a few listens it hits you: this is desert music. The sparseness reflects life living in a vast, dusty space. Both exhilerating and humbling, being a dot in an immense place is used in the music, giving it a certain gravity that's hard to explain.

On first listen you may wonder why I say all of this. That it is just 'another acoustic singer-songwriter album'. It really is so much more than that. Not quite any particular genre, this is honestly something special. Unlike anything Mrs. Hersh has ever released before, unlike anything else I've ever heard. Its nearest contemporary would perhaps be Giant Sand (whose Howie Gelb plays piano here), but only as a kising cousin.

Buy this, and those hot, still, long summer nights will have the most wonderful soundtrack.

Ignore the negative reviews of the album. This is the most important album Kristin has made since Hips and Makers. It acts well as a haunted companion to that first solo outing. Written and recorded while Kristin was pregnant for the fourth time, these ten pieces, which work well as a suite, are full of a vulnerability and anxiety. Kristin has never sounded more worn out, more sad. Her voice resonates, as if she's singing from the bottom of a well. This is an album whose mood will not leave the listener when the music has finished. There is a delicate, troubled beauty here which is not easily shaken off. Kristin is accompanied by plaintive violin and fractious, occasionally manic piano by leftfield icon, Howe Gelb. Gelb does not so much play the piano, as run at it and haul it to the ground like a wild animal. His playing gives the album an edginess reflected in the lyrics. It should be said that the words are surprisingly clear and unjumbled this time around, and when read on the page, read like modern poetry. 'Snow buries Whitehall/White powdered Nembutal/And I can't think anymore/ My feet are like ice and the moon shines/On Christmas trees and plastic deer/I decide to forgive and forget' (Sno Cat). Drug dependency is a familar theme here. Vitamins V is a reference to vodka and valium, which are a pretty numbing cocktail. Kristin sings: 'You're gonna want to ride back here with me/I've got the coolest view/and on vitamins V/I can't seem to lie to you'. The imagery throughout this album is unforgettable. 'A fulgent fourth grader/dressed in nylon and blue/A sheepish smile just for you' . . . 'indigent darkness thick as a dream/a liquid party underneath' . . . 'a snake and a girl in the snow' . . . 'a man made of butterfat'. This is real poetry: 'a bottle green sky/stinging yellow hair/in a dizzy of deviation/giddy in the glare'. And who could capture the anxiety of a parent more vividly and more memorably than this: 'you're trying to shield your glass newborn from the dodgeballs/and aching for children that you have never seen'. The whole album is a midnight soliloquy, performed in the moonlight. High points are Deep Wilson, SRB, Silver Sun and Vitamins V. But the whole work is wonderful, from the first to the last second. And will haunt you always. Okay - it's a difficult album; one will not receive instant gratification from it. At least half a dozen listens are required to fully appreciate its depth and singularity. But this only emphasises the value of the album. There will not be a more valuable album released this year. In ten years time, many music critics will be looking pretty sheepish, because of their knee-jerk dismissal of the album. How many critics said at the time of the release of Hips and Makers, that it was a masterpiece? And yet, how many were willing to say it several years later? This is another human masterpiece from an incredible human being and artist. Ignore this album, and you will ignore an unforgettable slice of humanity. And you will be a poorer person for it.

This is by far the most beautiful and hypnotic album i have ever heard. i was blown away from the first track (Sno Cat) and was impatient to listen to the rest of the album. luckily, howerever, i did listen to each track and my heart was beating with excitement on tracks such as Snake Oil and Arnica Montana, the latter in which the celtic influenced strings mixed with jazz piano went together perfectly. Again, her talent as a poet and songwriter shines through the eeriness and mysticism of this album. Thank you Kristin for making your music so enjoyable and memorable...