Hips and Makers: Hersh Kristin: Amazon.co.uk: Music

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Product Description

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In 1994, Kristin Hersh took a sabbatical from her beloved and beleaguered Throwing Muses to record her first solo album, Hips and Makers. Mostly acoustic, entirely personal, Hips' songs touch the core of Hersh's daily life, specifically as it involves her husband and family, topics she rarely explored with her band. Produced by ex-Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, Hips and Makers infuses the singer/songwriter tradition with a jolt of complexity and authority. Hersh still favors the taut, stream of consciousness lyrics she whittled down to the bone with the Muses, but she never veers into confessional "dear diary" territory, although she does allow peeks into a world where clotheslines, bee stings, and the occasional ghost aren't unusual. Musically more measured and clearly quieter than any Muses disc, Hips showcases Hersh's fluttery voice atop powerful acoustic guitar with flourishes from cello and piano. "Your Ghost," the album's moody and dazzling opener, features backup vocals by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and sets the tone for the album: like a family, it's happy on the surface, intriguing when explored. --Shawn Stewart

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

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4.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raw Emotion, 6 Jan 2002

By	yorric@aol.com (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hips and Makers (Audio CD)

Kristin Hersh's Throwing Muses were one of the few great bands to come out of the USA in the 1980's. Their eponymous debut was doubtless one of the most striking and original records of the decade. That the Muses split after 10 consistently great records was a great shame.

Reassuring then that Hersh came back with a solo debut that proved to be one of the half dozen stand-out records of the 90's. Hersh's uniquely raw and emotive vocals, by turn delicate and vulnerable, then fierce and fiery, plus her great lyrics (a rarity for most "rock" albums) make this a memorable listen.

Accoustic throughout, with intricate guitar and piano rythms and a wonderful opening duet with REM's Michael Stipe on "Your Ghost", every track here is wonderful. Hersh stands unmatched lyrically, sounding more akin to poetry set to music.

Hersh has yet to release a weak record, see last year's Sunny Border Blue for evidence of her still great output, but this is and will remain her finest record. A great place to start on probably the most consistently special back catalogue. Get this, then work through the Throwing Muses work too. Nothing comes close.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cut above, 26 Feb 2006

By	David Johnson "El Burrito" (Buenos Aires) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hips and Makers (Audio CD)

I can´t help adding my voice to the long list of praise that so many people have given this record.
This was without doubt one of the finest recordings of the nineties and probably didn´t reach a wider audience only because of the vogue for male-dominated guitar bands at the time.
I was never a fan of Hersh´s band Throwing Muses. It wasn´t that I didn´t like them, I just found them harmless and unremarkable. Then I remember her previewing tracks for this album on the radio one night. Alone she was suddenly a completely different prospect. Her songwriting was richer and she learned how to be spiteful and sing with malice, something that I´d never seen her do before.
This collection of bare, haunting songs continue to captivate me. Michael Stipe serves as a perfect foil on the bewitching,"Your Ghost." My favourite track has to be the bullish,towerng "Me and my Charms." This blends excellently with sweet melodies like,"Velvet Days."
Kristin Hersh has a fantastic vocal range and on this record she also shows herself to be a very able guitarist. She doesn´t need anyone playing along with her, solo she finds the bare emotion that mark this out as truly something special.
If you want to get your hands on a little piece of lost magic, discover this.

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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The greatest work of humanity in the history of music, 17 Nov 2001

By	M. Brown (Cardiff United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hips and Makers (Audio CD)

This will always be Kristin Hersh's greatest achievement. On this album, Kristin put every aspect of her life on display. Not in a lame look-at-me confessional sense, but in an honest, powerfully human and moving sense. This is an album that seems to provoke so many different feelings in people. Astute music listeners recognise it as an extraordinary masterpiece; others dismiss it as a mad woman ranting. The fact is, there is not another album like this; none of Kristin's other albums are remotely like it either - this is a once in a lifetime recording. Every note bleeds; every note carries the torment and disappointment of life. Any person who has suffered in this life, will take this album to their heart. Everything is here, in the same way that everything is in Proust's literary masterpiece. They are both completely different in almost every way, and are seemingly bizarre bedfellows, but they are both masterworks of humanity. In a sense, Proust took the high road; Kristin has got down and dirty on the low road. These songs are full of dirt, broken glass, twisted beauty. 'A Loon' is full of paranoia; 'Houdini Blues' is full of defiance in the face of adversity; 'Beestung' possesses a beautiful but damaging fragility; 'Me And My Charms' blazes with a combination of despair and ironic pride. On 'Tuesday Night' she has resorted to the bottle to deal with the strain of living.
Whereas the most recent album, 'Sunny Border Blue', is all about letting it all out, a kind of primal scream album for the twenty first century, a brilliantly pulverising rollercoaster of despair, 'Hips And Makers', only lets the despair leak out in little rivulets. It's only on 'The Letter', with its devastating stream-of-consciousness lyric, that we get a real sense of the despair, only then do we too get sucked into the hurricane of her personal turmoil. On this song, she sings: 'My hands are shaking; don't you love me anymore?' She's looking for some kind of clemency, but cannot find it. Perhaps the only clemency that can be found is in medication or the bottle. The album finishes on the jolting, disjointed rhythm of the title track, a kind of dark nursery rhyme ('I married a brewer to keep me from drinking; I married a boxer to keep me from fighting'). The kind of strange logic that has always defined Kristin's lyrics. It brings a kind of disturbing calm to proceedings, the false calmness of medication, a numbness that masks all the pain. It's like Kristin is rocking on a ship where all the crew have died and turned to skeletons. There are no tears left to be cried; she can only stare at the horizon.
This album is an odyssey of human experience. Every note has been wrought by life; every note is pungent and poignant, unbearably vivid and moving. This album is life itself.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime!
I'm not going to contest each and every song with the review that gave this two stars (I'm pretty sure there will ever only be one! Read more

Published 7 months ago by Rincewind's Trunk

5.0 out of 5 stars Blast from the past
I had this album back in the early 90's and loved it and then for some unknown reason it disappeared from my life. Read more

Published on 11 Feb 2006 by kittitronic

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore anyone who says this isn't a classic.
I was surprised to see a couple of reviews down here with less than five stars. It's a classic, and it stands the test of time. Read more

Published on 11 Jan 2006 by P. Warren

5.0 out of 5 stars kristin hersh=incredible
i bought the album on its release in 1993 & it still gets played at least once a month but just caught her live this month & i cant stop playing it,i can quite honestly... Read more

Published on 26 Nov 2005 by M. D. Eberlein

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Much Of The Same - But The Stipe Duet Is Great
It is wise of Kristin Hersh to start this album with 'Your Ghost'. It is the only duet on 'Hips And Makers' - with R.E.M. Read more

Published on 22 Oct 2001 by Bjorn Clasen

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful music for a stormy day
Kirsten Hersh has a soft vocal style but quite hard lyrics and the contrast it quite powerful. THe best track is the duet with Michael Stipe: Your Ghost. Read more

Published on 24 Jul 2001

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	83% buy the item featured on this page: Hips and Makers 4.4 out of 5 stars (9)
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	3% buy House Tornado/The Fat Skier 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) �6.48

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