5 GREAT ALBUM TRACKS FOR FRIDAY......WITH AN APOLOGY TO THE AUTHOR!!!

Y'see, the thing is, Mike from Manic Pop Thrills sent this over to me in mid-October and I should have featured it there and then as it mentions a gig which has now come and gone. The fact that the gig was a cracker is another reason I feel bad. Anyway, here's what Mike has to say:-

I've long promised JC a post for his “5 Great Album Tracks for Friday” series, so I thought I'd finally deliver on that promise.

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing  I’ve decided to go with one of the most singular and special bands in my collection – Throwing Muses.

It’s a good time to be writing about the band as the first Throwing Muses collection ‘Anthology’ was released last month on 4AD.

I was introduced to them by a friend in late 1987 and their sound was genuinely like nothing I'd ever heard before.

The band were formed by singer-singwriter Kristin Hersh in the early 80s when she was 14 and the line-up which came to prominence in the late 80s also featured her half sister, Tanya Donelly, bassist Leslie Langton and drummer David Narcizo (who is not, and never has been, a girl).

After early demo tapes, the band were signed for 4AD in the UK by Ivo (who definitely didn't sign American acts) and they released their untitled debut LP in 1986. One oddity of the Muses story is that, despite fitting so well into the 4AD art-rock aesthetic of the time, the band were actually on a major label  in the States - Sire.

As a consequence, there were pressures on the band to make their sound more accessible. These pressures did occasionally bring results from the record company's perspective, most notably on near hit single ‘Dizzy’ from their third LP ‘Hunkpapa’  but it’s a song that Hersh has subsequently disowned. However by anyone’s standards, the Muses continued to stick to their guns, something we should all be grateful.

Despite continuing critical support the band were never able to make a commercial breakthrough although the ‘University’ album (in 1994) did make it into the UK Top 10, perhaps on the back of the success of grunge.

So after recording 7 albums, 2 non LP EPs and a handful of singles, the band went on hiatus in 1997 due to financial constraints.

Hersh subsequently embarked on an extensive solo career but she realised that she was still writing songs for her “dead band”.  Throwing Muses was therefore revived early in the new century and an eighth, self titled, LP recorded with some assistance from Donelly (who had left the band to form Belly in 1991). Released in 2003, with a tour to support it, the album only managed to tickle the UK Top 75.

Since then the band has gigged occasionally, usually in the States, whilst Hersh has continued to record both as a solo artist and with her other band 50 Foot Wave.

Over the years, Hersh has been an outspoken critic of the music industry and, now freed from all her recording contracts, she has been able to operate in a manner to back up her words.

Her most recent solo LP 'Crooked' was funded entirely through listener contributions ('Strange Angels' via the CASH music project), and every 50 Foot Wave track is available for free legal download, again through CASH.

The same system is being used to fund the next Throwing Muses LP, which is now recorded and could feature as many as THIRTY EIGHT tracks. The record will likely appear some time in 2012 but you can hear solo demos of some of the songs on the record here.

As if her varied musical output wasn't enough to keep Kristin going, last year she embarked on a new career as a writer and published her extraordinary memoir,  'Paradoxical Undressing' (titled 'Rat Girl’ in the States). The book tells the story of the year in her life leading up to both the recording of the first Muses LP and the birth of her first child.

It strikes me as unjust that a band as original and consistently great as the Muses seems to have achieved little in the way of recognition. Their singular sound was undoubtedly a factor in preventing them reaching a wider audience but equally there is no doubt that an absence of hit singles was a factor. Their legacy is perhaps further hampered by the lack of any consensus over which is the definitive Muses record. Perhaps the release of 'Anthology' will go some way to redressing that balance.

Back to 5 tracks from Throwing Muses. In making the final choice I've decided to limit myself, not just to avoiding the singles, but also to avoiding tracks on 'Anthology'. So if you like the following five songs, then the collection would be a good place to start:

mp3 : Throwing Muses - Call Me (from 'Untitled' 1986)

mp3 : Throwing Muses - Take (from 'Hunkpapa' 1989)

mp3 : Throwing Muses - Say Goodbye (from 'The Real Ramona' 1991)

mp3 : Throwing Muses - Pearl (from 'Red Heaven' 1993)

mp3 : Throwing Muses - Half Blast (from 'Throwing Muses' 2003)

Although copies of the initial 2 disc release of 'Anthology' are close to sold out, there are still copies from Kristin's own web store or from 4AD.

A single disc version of 'Anthology' is released on 7th November to coincide with the first Throwing Muses European tour since 2003 which includes a  date at Oran Mor in Glasgow on 7th November.

Mike Melville, Friday 18 November 2011

And click here to read Mike's review of said Oran Mor Gig.

And here and here are where Mike has posted, in two parts, a tremendous interview he had with Kristin Hersh when they met up in Edinburgh a few months back.  It's way better than anything you find in music mags. Part 2 of the interview in particular, in which Kristin pulls no punches with her thoughts on the failure of major record labels is essential reading for anyone who considers themself to be a music fan.

Happy Listening to the tracks.  And Happy Reading of the day when Mike met Kristin.