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Baker's Dozen

Songs Are Syringes: Kristin Hersh On Her Favourite Tracks
John Doran , October 28th, 2013 09:06

Throwing Muses are releasing Purgatory/Paradise, their first album in a decade, so Kristin Hersh met up with John Doran to discuss her favourite records (not albums)

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50 Foot Wave - ‘Pneuma’
The reason ‘Pneuma’ is on here is the same reason that ‘Never Tell’ by the Violent Femmes is there, because it was a road that popped out of nowhere. 50 Foot Wave was playing classic noise rock and then ‘Pneuma’ came out of nowhere and I thought, “That’s the road.” DJs would say, “We’d love to play some 50 Foot Wave on the radio, what should we play?” We don’t do singles, there’s no record company to push it, I’d just say, “Play ‘Pneuma’.” But I’d forget that the chorus was, “Shut the fuck up!” - I got so many people in so much trouble. But then the next thing we did was Power And Light, which is one track which is over half an hour long, which we did because of ‘Pneuma’. And the next one, which isn’t out yet, is my favourite but ‘Pneuma’ told us which direction to go in.