Out today new single ‘Constance Street’ is taken from ‘Clear Pond Road’ out 8th September on Fire Records. Following its release Kristin Hersh will be on an extensive tour of the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand for the remainder of 2023.
‘Constance Street’ is the third single taken from the new album, Kristin explains “I lived on Constance Street in New Orleans when that song’s story happened. Buying slips in the Irish Channel/broken prince in fluorescent camo is a very Southern day. I was born a hick and I guess I’ll always be one.”
‘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.
Hersh wrote, performed and produced the album 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, or a home movie caught in time. The record is a sensuous, life-affirming statement, a new piece of this mysterious jigsaw and a very personal memoir. From street signs to snapshots, it’s a blossoming of a true icon of independence. The record is both intimate yet expansive.
“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.”
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.
‘Clear Pond Road’ is out 8th September. Available on Rough Trade LTD Ed. Transparent Blue Vinyl with Lyric Book, LTD Ed. Clear Vinyl & CD + Totes & T-Shirts.
TOUR DATES
27 Sep: The Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter, UK
29 Sep: St George’s Church, Ramsgate, UK
30 Sep: (Matinee) Florence Park Community Centre, Oxford, 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
10 Oct: Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, 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
16 Oct: Cluny, Newcastle, UK
17 Oct: Cluny, Newcastle, UK
18 Oct: Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, UK
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
02 Nov: Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane, Australia
03 Nov: Smith’s Alternative, Canberra, Australia
05 Nov: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda, Australia
09 Nov: Vanguard, Newton, Australia
10 Nov: Vanguard, Newton, Australia
11 Nov: Baroque Room, Katoomba, Australia
16 Nov: Meow, Wellington, New Zealand
17 Nov: The Piano, Christchurch, New Zealand
18 Nov: Tuning Fork, Auckland, New Zealand
19 Nov: Artworks, Waiheke Island, New Zealand
