Together with her recent work in 50FOOTWAVE, Kristin Hersh is well-known for an abundant solo discography and as a member of Throwing Muses, who alongside fellow New Englanders The Pixies helped to pioneer the onslaught of Alternative Rock. Not one to rest on laurels, in recent years she’s explored the vocation of author with noted success, her words occasionally joined with continued musical pursuit. Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is the latest example if these fruitfully intertwining threads; an auteur project if ever one existed, it combines two CDs with a hardcover book of prose and lyrics, and is available October 28 in the UK and November 11 in the US through Omnibus Press.
Hersh’s writing career began in a manner fairly standard for a working musician, specifically by composing essays and partaking in that bastion of the ’80s fanzine press, the tour diary, with her work appearing via her own website and as a guest blogger for Powells.com. But Hersh wasn’t just any working musician; this seemingly newfound outlet for creative expression branched off from impressive musical achievement having commenced way back in 1984 through Throwing Muses’ self-released EP “Stand Up.”
As the first American signing to the important UK post-punk label 4AD, Throwing Muses gained prominence through an untitled ’86 debut and House Tornado in ’88; in addition to Hersh, listeners were also introduced to the talents of Tanya Donelly, who departed after The Real Ramona in 1991. Releasing three more albums before a long hiatus and the periodic resurgences of Throwing Muses in 2003 and Purgatory / Paradise in ’13, even with Bernard Georges playing bass since 1992 and David Narcizo filling the drum seat from way back in ’83, it’s Hersh who’s most immediately identified with the name.
This is partially due to her role as songwriter and vocalist, and the situation is surely amplified by her productivity as a solo artist, though Hersh’s releases under her own name have consistently explored a dynamic unique from the band framework of Throwing Muses. This scenario reaches an apex with Wyatt at the Coyote Palace; with a few exceptions, her previous solo output has welcomed a varying degree of guest input, but as the promo notes for her latest explicitly state, this is the second consecutive occasion where she “performs and creates all instruments and sounds.”
The prior occurrence was 2010’s Crooked, which also happened to be the first instance of a Hersh CD coexisting with a book of her writing. Three years later, Throwing Muses’ Purgatory / Paradise appeared in the same configuration, with Athens’ Happy Happy Birthday to Me label issuing the music on limited edition cassette and LP.
Hersh’s standalone books include the memoir Paradoxical Undressing (issued in the USA as Rat Girl), the children’s book Toby Snax and Don’t Suck, Don’t Die, which details her long friendship with the late and much missed singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt. Wyatt at the Coyote Palace retains the personal focus, alternating meditative recollections (described both as essays and stories, there’s also a recipe for Hooker Gazpacho) with the words to the 24 songs, lyrics that elude the typical verse-chorus structure for a more poetic approach.
Absorbing the text, it’s reinforced that Hersh’s writing eludes the burden afflicting many musicians turned litterateurs, namely a lack of discipline (aka amateurism) as a supposed virtue, a tendency toward the shallowness of style over the permanence of substance, or just hubris-fueled folly in general. In short, divorced of these songs, the writing would easily stand on its own.
Obviously, the components are meant to be considered together, if not necessarily all in one sitting; two CDs totaling just over 82 minutes is frankly a lot to absorb, but Wyatt at the Coyote Palace’s construction encourages interaction from the listener that’s deeper than the norm while still in line with the long practice of huddling by the speaker with lyric sheet or booklet in hand.
In purely musical terms, this is amongst Hersh’s most full-bodied solo material, with extensive multi-tracking employed; recorded at her favorite studio in Portsmouth, RI with her frequent engineer Steve Rizzo, she’s credited with guitar, bass, drums, piano, horns, cello, and field recordings, to ends that ultimately remain in line with the trajectory of her solo work. Rhythm is certainly present, but intermittently and productively so, as the objective here isn’t to replicate the sound of a group but to fully illuminate the songs.
She’s succeeded brilliantly; opener “Bright” accentuates her increasingly chime-like guitar picking with a soundscape drifting from what sounds like muffled pedal steel to industrial-tinged cello to a haze of amplifier squall; all this before springing into full strum mode with accompanying gusts of distortion. When Hersh’s voice enters, it comes with the tangible facet of experience but no decrease in ability as her singing is emotional, focused, and sturdy throughout the set.
Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is suffused with striking moments; the jump cut from folkish intimacy to poppy vocal harmony of “In Stitches,” the round bass tones of “Green Screen,” the sonic channel-switching of “Detox” and the slightly more streamlined intermingling of textures elevating “Hemingway’s Tell.” While the book benefits from the meshing of lyrics and stories, many of the songs are distinguished by quick splices of tone and meter magnifying a single artistic perspective.
And yet Hersh resists the possible indulgences of creative isolation, with the palace of the title referencing an abandoned apartment building inhabited by coyotes that briefly captivated her son Wyatt. This fascination inspired the book’s prose, but the songs were written over the course of five years, and it shows.
Her execution matches the conception. The use of cello to establish tough bottom end over mere baroque gestures enhances “Secret Codes” and particularly the latter portion of “Day 3,” while the slightly Chesnutt-like “Diving Bell” and disc one’s closer “Guadalupe” were apparently recorded to simulate listening from inside the hollow body of the guitar; the tough strum blends superbly with the bowed strings in “American Copper” as the use of the field recordings mentioned above subtly invigorates the tune.
The tactic recurs in “August” as it lends a briefly audible layer to standout “Some Dumb Runaway” and more boldly shapes “Wonderland” and “Soma Gone Slapstick,” the sound of Hersh speaking also bookending the terrific “Sun Blown,” the song’s bass transitioning to thick momentum bordering on rumble. But it’s in the gradually unfurling dimensions of tracks like “Elysian Fields” that really reinforce the rarity of what’s on display.
Progressing toward the largeness of scale and grand sweep of closer “Shotgun,” Wyatt at the Coyote Palace is loaded with fleeting gemlike passages, the guitar progression at the beginning of “Christmas Underground” just one example. Veteran artists too often succumb to the pitfall of reunion tours or desperate networking with younger musicians in an attempt to prolong relevancy. Not so for Kristin Hersh, and her liberated alternative bears significant fruit. Now, to find a drafty hallway to eat some Hooker Gazpacho.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
