{"id":23686,"date":"2016-10-23T15:29:36","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T14:29:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=23686"},"modified":"2016-10-27T17:06:29","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T16:06:29","slug":"call-of-the-wild-kristin-hersh-dices-with-death-on-solo-double-album-wyatt-at-the-coyote-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2016\/10\/call-of-the-wild-kristin-hersh-dices-with-death-on-solo-double-album-wyatt-at-the-coyote-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"CALL OF THE WILD – Kristin Hersh Dices With Death On Solo Double Album Wyatt At The Coyote Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"kristin-hersh-wyatt-at-the-coyote-palace-cd-cover\"<\/p>\n

A dream-like and at times nightmarish ride, Kristin Hersh’s new album is an extraordinarily multi-layered work that’s tough\u00a0to de-code.<\/h4>\n

It’s a wilfully oblique mosaic of half-realised\u00a0memories of past events and emotions.<\/h4>\n

Five years in the making, it’s a solo effort\u00a0in every sense, with Hersh not only writing the songs, but playing all the instruments and supplying\u00a0the eerie field recordings that give the album its cinematic feel.<\/p>\n

Hersh’s autistic son, Wyatt\u00a0says it sounds like “big budget home movies” and he’s not wrong, you can almost picture the flickering cine film as the succession of vivid vignettes on this 24-track opus glide by<\/p>\n

Wyatt’s\u00a0fascination with an abandoned building taken over by coyotes inspired the title of the album, but it’s not essentially about him.<\/p>\n

Instead it’s a series of sketches, scattered snapshots and images of often bizarre experiences encountered\u00a0by Hersh and her family.<\/p>\n

Like her two previous solo recordings\u00a0Wyatt…. c<\/em>omes with an accompanying book, illustrated by Hersh’s own photographs and designed by Throwing Muses<\/strong> bandmate and longtime friend David Narcizo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hersh says the addition of a book makes her albums seem like more of a gift and, in these days of streaming and downloads, it’s certainly a heartening touch.<\/p>\n

The book fleshes out some of the lyrics – how else would we know that “Big Red,” her band’s tour bus, is driven by a guy named Wolverine? – but it doesn’t give too much away.<\/p>\n

Written\u00a0in a witty conversational style it recounts a series of near-death experiences and hair-raising escapes.<\/p>\n

There are bus and car accidents, giant home\u00a0invaders and even a Spinal Tap<\/strong>-style\u00a0episode where Hersh\u00a0is thrown\u00a0off her feet\u00a0by the shock from a faulty amp jack.<\/p>\n

These ‘rehearsals’ for death weave around the lyrics of the songs in the book, \u00a0but the relationship is complex, never clearly defined or explained.<\/p>\n

The lyrics are typically confessional, but seldom straightforward and shot through with\u00a0references to water,\u00a0falling and the changing seasons.<\/p>\n

Intoxication in all its forms\u00a0is another abiding theme – most explicitly\u00a0on\u00a0Detox <\/em><\/strong>and the scattered syringes of\u00a0Bubble<\/strong> Net<\/strong><\/em>, but more subtly and metaphorically elsewhere.<\/p>\n

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There’s also world-weariness and sense of disappointment and loss running through the album.<\/p>\n

\u201dDon\u2019t know where to go from here\/ don\u2019t know where to go to disappear”, <\/em>she sings on\u00a0In Stitches<\/strong><\/em>, while the driving\u00a0Wonderland<\/strong><\/em> warns \u201cYou\u2019re losing her, losing, you\u2019re lost<\/em>\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I’m so fucking tired of dissolution,” <\/em>she rasps on \u00a0the acoustic punk of\u00a0Sun Blown<\/strong><\/em> then later, “I’ve got nowhere to go.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Many songs speak of trouble, degradation and shame – “<\/i><\/b>We don\u2019t like the shit between piety and desire\/No we don\u2019t like the shit ’cause we belong it,” <\/em>she spits on the stunning\u00a0Between\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Piety and Desire<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0it’s\u00a0not a depressing or over-wrought record, it’s spiky, unpredictable and that goes for the music too.<\/p>\n

Hersh is constantly tossing in little surprises, musical jolts, which act like film jump cuts, forcing\u00a0you to sit up and pay attention.<\/p>\n

Sinewy, fluid acoustic arpeggios are juxtaposed with squalls of distortion, while slippery bass lines meld into choppy punk guitar.<\/p>\n

There are gentle strings and piano, occasional tub-thumping drums and mournful cello.<\/p>\n

Less immediate than her album with\u00a050FOOTWAVE<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0earlier this year, it’s never less than compelling, \u00a0it’s complexity\u00a0inviting repeated listens.<\/p>\n

In her recent EP\u00a0interview<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Hersh described her solo work as “thick and woody” and you can see what she means on this record.\u00a0Its depth entangles, dense branches, shades of meaning, folding in around you.<\/p>\n

Hersh paints beautiful word pictures, but she doesn’t always make it easy for you.<\/p>\n

“To God and man you only know secret codes. You don\u2019t need my help at all<\/em>,” she sings on the appropriately-named Secret Codes<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It’s not an easy album to work out and if I’ve got it wrong i can only apologise, but as\u00a0I sit tapping this out at 3am – a sick cat wheezing gently on my lap – it strikes me that this is the perfect mood\u00a0for this record.<\/p>\n

It’s an album that inhabits the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, drunkenness and sobriety, fever and concentration.<\/p>\n

Hersh consistently operates in spaces where others fear to tread and that’s why no-one else ever sounds quite like her.<\/p>\n