Kristin Hersh travels to 'Clear Pond Road' on September album

Kristin Hersh's upcoming 12th solo album Clear Pond Road is set for release September 8, along with new single and visualizer “Dandelion,” watch HERE. Preorder the record HERE.

“Dandelion’s main image is climbing a fire escape up to my dressing room in an alley outside a club I was playing (I’ve never needed to invent metaphors; they’re everywhere),” Hersh recounts. “Anybody in love is always climbing to those eyes, you know? We’re voyeurs because we can’t ever know the beloved as completely as we want to.”

Clear Pond Road continues the juxtaposition of dark and light –dark sunshine, as Hersh puts it– that characterizes Hersh’s work with Throwing Muses but goes even further inward as it explores the intimacy and complexity that sits alongside Hersh’s fierce independence.

“Passion sounds less angry here, more grateful, I think.” Hersh reflects. “Sweeter, sadder, and somehow no less alive.”

Hersh wrote, performed, and produced Clear Pond Road at Stable Sound Studio. She incorporates strings and ambient field recordings on the album.

“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.”

In addition, Hersh confirms an international tour in support of the record, including dates in the UK, Ireland, and Australia, with U.S. dates to come.

Hersh cofounded Throwing Muses in high school, and after earning a devoted following the group was the first American group to be signed to the beloved British label 4AD. Amidst international touring, releasing ten solo albums (multiple independently) and founding her own label, Hersh went on to form the power rock trio 50 Foot Wave and publish 3 books, including her acclaimed memoir, Rat Girl. Hersh was one of the first artists to break outside of the traditional label system, using a fan supported structure to fund her work.

TRACK LIST: 

1. Bewitched Reruns
2. Ms Haha
3. Dandelion
4. Constance Street
5. Thank You, Corner Blight
6. St. Valentine's Day Massacre
7. Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire
8. Eyeshine
9. Palmetto
10. Tunnels