Set for release on 8th September, Kristin Hersh announces new album Clear Pond Road with the release of new single ‘Dandelion’ out 30th May and an extensive UK and Australia tour set for this Autumn.
Clear Pond Road continues the juxtaposition of dark and light –dark sunshine, as Hersh puts it– that characterizes Hersh’s legendary work with Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave but goes even further inward as it explores the intimacy and complexity that sits alongside Hersh’s fierce independence.
“Passion sounds less angry here, more grateful, I think.” Hersh reflects. “Sweeter, sadder, and somehow no less alive.”
Hersh wrote and performed Clear Pond Road at Stable Sound Studio. She incorporates strings and ambient field recordings on the record to lushly cinematic effect, with the close-up intimacy and sensory nature of each track culminating in a record that resembles a sonic memoir.
“Some records demand to be made,” says Hersh. “And you know this is the case when the songs function as systems in a body. I octavized an acoustic baritone as the skeleton, cellos are the lungs, a Nashville-strung Collings and glockenspiel were the fingertips feeling around in this weird-ass dark space, and drums are always your heart, of course… but the vocals are a strange narrator here. A narrator lost in the story, of all things, more like eyes.”
“Her songs have always been both confessional and formally challenging; they expose her, but also evade us, throwing down clues and scurrying into dark thickets before revealing more.” NPR
A cinematic road trip; Clear Pond Road is a series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, plush with layers of atonal, edgy-dreamy strings and mellotron. It’s a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking, an elegant piece of personal reportage: a home movie caught in time.
‘Clear Pond Road’ is out 8th September. Available on Rough Trade ltd ed transparent blue vinyl with lyric book, ltd ed clear vinyl & CD. Also available official merch: totes & t-shirts.
TOUR DATES
27 Sep: The Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter, UK
29 Sep: St George’s Church, Ramsgate, UK
30 Sep: Florence Park Community Centre, Oxford, UK
01 Oct: Philharmonic, Liverpool, UK
03 Oct: Strange Brew, Bristol, UK
04 Oct: Acapella Club, Cardiff, UK
05 Oct: South Street Arts Centre, Reading, UK
06 Oct: Storey’s Field, Cambridge, UK
08 Oct: Arts Centre, Norwich, UK
09 Oct: Metronome, Nottingham, UK
11 Oct: Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, UK
12 Oct: St Michael’s Ancoats, Manchester, UK
14 Oct: Mono, Glasgow, UK
15 Oct: Summerhall (Dissection Room), Edinburgh, UK
17 Oct: Cluny, Newcastle, UK
18 Oct: Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, UK
19 Oct: Cleeres, Kilkenny, Ireland
20 Oct: Roisin Dubh, Galway, Ireland
21 Oct: Pavilion Theatre, Dublin, Ireland
22 Oct: The Court House, Bangor, UK
23 Oct: The Spirit Store, Dundalk, Ireland
24 Oct: The Old Brewery, Kendal, UK
25 Oct: Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek, UK
26 Oct: Hare And Hounds, Birmingham, UK
28 Oct: St John at Bethnal Green, London, UK
29 Oct: Komedia, Brighton, UK
AUS
02 Nov: Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, Australia
03 Nov: Smith’s Alternative, Canberra, Australia
05 Nov: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda, Australia
08 Nov: Northcote Social Club, Melbourne, Australia
10 Nov: Vanguard, Newton, Australia
11 Nov: Baroque Room, Katoomba, Australia
