Following the recent announcement of Kristin Hersh’s new album, Clear Pond Road, today sees the release of new single ‘Ms. Haha’ alongside a brand new music video.
“Mr Bones is my man and Ms Haha is me, ripped off from a Truman Capote story. So heavy. Love is goofy gravity.” adds Kristin.
Manipulated and distorted visuals feature throughout the music video directed by Jonny Sanders. It compliments Hersh’s performance of the song that shifts with different and varying elements.
“After speaking with her about her recording process and how audio can be revamped and effected, I wanted to use some of those techniques but in a visual way.” Sander reflects, “I took her footage and re-filmed it all using a projector onto various textures and, more interestingly, a technique called ‘Pepper’s Ghost’ from the mid-19th century. The film is reflected in a 45- degree transparent screen to produce an almost holographic effect, giving it 3D space and distortion. This was placed inside glass objects to further manipulate the image.”
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: 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
