Throwing Muses At Purgatory/Paradise

When Kristin Hersh released Crooked three years ago, it set the tone for her next chapter. It has been brisk and productive, with a steady stream of art flowing outward from what she calls her funny-looking, intense and necessary planet of music.

Her continuous creative bursts have become a massive collection of tracks that she has quietly assembled to make the first Throwing Muses album in a decade. Except, it wasn't really quiet.

Hersh has been sharing bits, pieces, demos, and works in progress for weeks and months and years. At times there didn't even seem to be an end in sight — so much so that the first Throwing Muses album in a decade was something she sometimes called Precious/Pretentious behind the scenes.

The name could have been perfect for the release too, but she settled on something more mysterious. Purgatory/Paradise is named after an intersection in Rhode Island. Specifically, it's a bend that takes westbound drivers north past Purgatory Chasm. It's quiet there, a few hundred feet before an ocean front.

Purgatory/Paradise is an impressive collection of intensely intimate music.

The 32-track album plays very much like the area around its namesake. There are soft and intimate discoveries, roaring songs with big surfy crashes, craggy cliffs that invite you to jump, and great big slides that ride along with big swelling waves. All of it strikes a nerve as one of this year's best.

With only a few songs ever passing the three-minute mark, Hersh delivers an all-organic outing that has a physical presence with colors and textures that spins around and sends heads reeling. Some of the most striking standalone tracks include the psychedelically tuned Morning Birds 1, drug-induced surrender of Opiates, and the riveting self-acceptance of Slippershell.

Sunray Venus is a shell, which is the place she and the band retreat to after every world tour. As always, she jokes that her music takes on it a life of its own. It frequently leaves her out of it.


What she isn't left out of it how Purgatory/Paradise is presented. While the album or portions of it can be downloaded, Hersh feels strongly that music was never meant to be compressed on a compact disc. There is so much more to it, something she has framed with essays, photographs, and artwork from her and bandmate Dave Narcizo.

It's very similar to what she set the stage with in producing Crooked but then immediately takes her work past several rungs to an impossible next level. In fact, the 64 pages aren't distilled into whatever could fit between the hardcover. Instead, it swells with instruction for more downloads: exclusive content, demos, and outtakes.

Like all of her work, it's largely funded by fans that range from Strange Angels ($30 per quarter) to Executive Producers (who even receive executive producer credit on her next CD). But that in itself becomes the part of the beauty of her work. Hersh has pioneered the way to make music, minimizing the business aspect and maximizing the art.

The results are arresting. Some tracks are nothing more than teases, interludes, and feelings captured in a couple seconds and then shared with sound. They are joyous, imperfect, painful, and never longer than they need to be to convey precisely what was happening at the moment she got them out.

One of my favorite aspects of how the album is laid out includes split compositions like Smoky Hands, which opens the album with a little over a minute but then comes back around with a :28 second piece that washes over everything with a contemplative instrumental. It happens like that throughout, just the way life works out.

Purgatory/Paradise Is Near Perfect At 9.8 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

This is arguably the best album release of the year from an artist who has produced something largely unquantifiable in review. Sure, it's easy enough to say that Hersh has simply stayed true to what she considers a Muses tune. There is an expectant tone or groove that chases after her.

But what remains stridently different here isn't a single track or fleeting few seconds of an interlude. Purgatory/Paradise is a remarkable body of work in its totality, not only as an album with 32 tracks but also as an experience as interesting as the artists and musicians they were liberated from, especially from the head of Hersh.

You can find Purgatory/Paradise as a book or as an album on Amazon. You can download Purgatory/Paradise from iTunes. You can also find the book-framed album at Barnes & Noble and follow her on Facebook. If you are equally interested in all her work, you can always become a Strange Angel too.

Moon Taxi Takes It To Different Places

For the members of Moon Taxi, Mountains Beaches Cities is an exploratory album that dials back on the sonic landscape of their last album, Cabaret. They have a new aesthetic instead, one with a faster tempo, bigger sound and more soulful leanings.

They didn't dial back to their earlier days as a jam band, but they have hit upon the pop-rock groove that they wanted. Although the album is being distributed with the help of BMI, Mountains Beaches Cities was self-produced by Spencer Thomson (guitar) with an assist from Wes Bailey (keyboards).

They had some outside help, with Vance Powell (Jack White, The Dead Weather) mixing and Greg Calbi (Talking Heads, Paul Simon, Fleet Foxes) mastering the album. Tyler Ritter sums it up as an evolution, inspired by their time on the road.

Mountains Beaches Cities was created on the road. 

They were on the road in support of their last album when this one started coming together. According to the band, the trials of touring provides its own kind of inspiration. It was easy to stockpile song ideas and demos. When the band returned, they holed up in Thomson's apartment to record most of the album.

One of the songs gaining most of the attention is The New Black. Soulful and slightly funky, the track carries a restrained smoothness that almost begs to be more climatic than Moon Taxi ever lets it become. But maybe that's the point. Moon Taxi makes it more aloof than any other band might have made it.



Lyrically, the song is straightforward too. Trevor Terndrup almost sounds hushed as he sings about finding the next big thrill — the new black — after all those other blacks feel old and maybe boring.

Along with The New Black, Running Wild makes for a great must listen. It is relaxed, even if the lyrics suggest something different. The basic idea is that everyone is running wild but it might be worthwhile to slow down and drink it in before the world stops spinning and the music stops.

It's all right. The 80s throwback Morocco is much more interesting, with its hooky instrumentals and lyrical daydreams about a place that none of the band members have ever been. It's nostalgic in making the destination sound exotic again. River Water feels equally nostalgic, conjuring up images of a soft rock sound from simpler times. So does Young Journey, with its folky acoustic sensibilities.

When sampling the album, listen to the bonus tracks My Own Mistakes and Silent Underground. They're more experimental than most tracks on the album, each of them on opposite sides of the spectrum for this Nashville-based band. It's all right to wish more of the album followed these tracks.

Where Moon Taxi has to be more careful is that they already think that they're so seasoned that they fully understand themselves and their music. It's a dangerous place to be for most bands — that moment when confidence has caught up to their musicianship — because nobody wants their confidence to eclipse it.

It's been great to see Moon Taxi evolve from a jam band and settle into a bigger and considerably more even sound. At the same time, Mountains Beaches Cities misses on the robust diversity that made Cabaret a great listen on the lighter side of rock. Even with the occasional proggy elements, this album moves them more toward indie pop.

The bottom line is that this is a masterful album for what they set out to do, with The New Black, My Own Mistakes, Silent Underground, and Running Wild accounting for the must-have tracks. I'm on the fence with Morocco and Young Journey, especially because the latter is almost too damn pretty for its own good.

Mountains Beaches Cities By Moon Taxi Samples 3.8 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

There isn't any doubt that Moon Taxi has talent, but they are dangerously close to not being hungry enough. Despite several great tracks recommended for some welcome playlist diversity, expect Moon Taxi to work harder at adding some robustness for live performances. For an album about the trials and tribulations of touring, there is a surprising lack of turbulence here. It's much more kick back and relax.

You can catch Mountains Beaches Cities by Moon Taxi on Amazon. You can also find the CD at Barnes & Noble or download the track from iTunes. Moon Taxi will be touring the Midwest in September before heading South. For tour date information, visit the band on Facebook.

The Stone Foxes Sting With A King Bee

Fresh off from releasing their roots-rock and surfing hillbilly LP Bears & Bulls, the Stone Foxes might be second-guessing some of the commercial radio-friendly tracks. They've already cut a new single, one that truly revisits their ability to play blues-rock.

I'm A King Bee re-centers the band on their most successful song from Bears & Bulls, Mr. Hangman. Not only was it their best and bluesiest rocker from album, but Mr. Hangman was an irresistibly retro jam that demonstrated their depth. It also helps fill the void occupied only by The Black Keys on occasion.

While I'm A King Bee might be a cover song, the Stone Foxes add more depth than The Rolling Stones did in 1964. Where the Stones' version added a slide guitar break, the Stone Foxes revive it with a deep, brooding bass line and fuller sound. It's one of the most exciting covers of the song since 1957.

The origins of I'm A King Bee by Slim Harpo.

The original recording was written and recorded as a B-side single by the legendary Slim Harpo, a part-time musician with a swamp grass blues sound that couldn't be duplicated. Dozens of bands have covered it since and it was recently honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award three years ago for its timeless, lasting, and historically significant sound.

If you're unfamiliar with Harpo, he was one of several blues artists who helped shape the earliest direction of rock and roll. In addition to the Stones, he has been covered by dozens of greats, including the Pretty Things, the Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, Van Morrison, The Kinks, and Them.

Always a favorite of the Rolling Stones, this Baton Rouge son has his career cut short at the age of 46. But Harpo's music has survived for its straightforward melodicism. His songs cross all genres too, helping artists get noticed in everything from country to Cajun to rock. And now again in 2011.

The Stone Foxes are a band to watch.

While the shorter B-side version (called an alternative romp version) doesn't have the bite of I'm A King Bee, the front side of the single strikes all the right chords, bridging the original swampy sound offered up by Harpo and adding a dizzying electric jam that hooks you into the song. It almost seems impossible to conceive that they recorded it for a Jack Daniel's honey commercial.

Not only will the commercial give the Stones Foxes more well-deserved exposure, it will undoubtedly become one of the band's defining moments. I wouldn't be surprised if it, along with Mr. Hangman, sets the tone for their next album. I've included Mr. Hangman as the clip since the commercial only offers a mere 30 seconds.


Like many talented and emerging bands today, the Stone Foxes grew up together. The group consists of members Aaron Mort, and brothers Spence Koehler and Shannon Koehler. (As well as, until recently, Avi Vinocur.) Although based in San Francisco, they originated in the Sierra Foothills. They officially became a band in 2005, with a promise to work out all their songs on stage.

That latter promise is what makes the Stone Foxes exciting to watch live. Much of their material is worked out on stage over a period of months.

I'm A King Bee Is Still Sweet At 9.6 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale.

Personally, I think their deep, swampy blues rock is the best, but they have plenty of other great tracks worth discovering. If you dig up a few from their two full-length albums, check out Mr. Hangman, Patience, I Killed Robert Johnson, and Beneath Mt. Sinai. Most are on their Bears & Bulls LP.

I'm A King Bee by the Stone Foxes is available for download on iTunes. The single is also at Amazon. You can find the original version by Slim Harpo off his Greatest Hits. For even more diversity, check out the covers from The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Muddy Waters, and The Doors.