Throwing Muses founder Kristin Hersh will soon release a new album alongside a book, the third album/book combination thus far in her career, in the form of Wyatt at the Coyote Palace and taken from the album we have a stream of the curiously titled ‘Soma Gone Slapstick’ above.
The track, like much of the album, is a continuation of the confessional songwriting that Hersh has come to be known for as a solo artist and as part of Throwing Muses. She has written extensively about the track itself and you can check out her full account of the ideas behind it and its production in full below.
The album and book will be available together in the UK and Australia from October 28 with a US release following on November 11. It was recorded at her favourite studio in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with Hersh at the helm of all the sounds featured, taking on duties on guitar, bass, drums, piano, horns, cello and field recordings. The album was written over the course of the last five years and inspired by the thoughts of her son Wyatt, who is on the autism spectrum.
Hersh will tour the UK and Ireland in the wake of the album’s release across November. You can find the full run of dates here.
Kristin Hersh says of the track above: "I hate getting drum takes. I mean, I hate when I get them right, because then I have to go back to playing finger-slicing guitar or the big old mean piano, all the notes in a long, bossy row. Even bass – which is pretty fun, to be honest – means being trapped on the leash of a cord connected to an amp. And vocals! Ugh. So disconcerting to hear the sound of your clothes inside your own head. Once the mic picked up a cricket in the studio. Really creepy, like the insect was burrowing into my brain. And singing is so dumb. An instrument you can’t tune, that doesn’t play right if you have a cold or hurt feelings. Drumming is better: goofy and falling and precise and muscular. Like a body telling a good joke. Well, it is when you do it right.
"Which I refused to do. I made this drum part last all night, through a blizzard, so that I wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark. Kept making (faking) mistakes so that I could keep all four limbs flying, do pretty math while pretty snow blew sideways past the window behind me. I heard Soma move through seasons: fall on the rebound, a manic spring, a cruel winter, and through places: California, Chicago, New Orleans, a protest march in Koreatown. When I finished, it was dawn, my engineer and I had coffee and I walked home through fat flakes falling down instead of sideways. Goofy + falling + precise + muscular = soma with a healthy dose of slapstick."
