Even voorstellen – Kristin Hersh – Sugar on blackstone

“moths” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnsKY3xQ_h4

KRISTIN HERSH “SUGAR ON BLACKSTONE” 18/09 (fire/konkurrent)

“Dark Eyed Junco” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CkplR541tE

Following on from 2023’s Clear Pond Road , Kristin Hersh returns with new solo set Sugar On Blackstone out 18th September on Fire
Records along with an extensive tour this Autumn across the UK , Europe and Australia .
A darker yet delicately rendered work from Kristin Hersh, Sugar On Blackstone explores life and death, enrichment and poverty, and the  small but defining moments of childhood that continue to echo through adult life. Deeply personal and emotionally expansive, the album
reflects on the lasting bonds between musicians, family and fri ends, and the way certain sounds, places and memories can suddenly bring someone vividly back into focus.

Out now new single , and second track from this release, ‘Dark Eyed Junco’ instantly draws you into her world with lucid, winding melodies and intricate arrangements. It’s an introspective track on Kristin and her brother’s childhood. Kristin adds, “ He was a ‘Dark Eyed  Junco’ and I was a light - eyed weirdo. We’d play basketball until after dark then, when we couldn’t even see the hoop anymore, so that we didn’t have to go home. After our stepfather moved in, it wasn’t a home anymore. ”
Recorded at Stable Sound Studios earlier this year, Hersh is joined by longtime collaborators Rob Ahlers (50FOOTWAVE ) on drums and cellist Pete Harvey (Throwing Muses). The result is a stark yet warm collection of songs that balances fragility with force, intimacy with tension.
“Here in Providence, we say, “the rich folks live on Power Street, but most of us live off Hope.” Last year, I found myself living on Hope Street for the third time, which is the charm one, right? I still travelled the country and the world, as I do - the ‘101 Run’ that is my work and my life - racing down highways and swimming with stingrays during the California wildfires at a ‘Silver Beach, ’ but always coming back to the ‘72 Stingrays’ racing past the park across the street from my city sun - drenched the n buried - in- snow Providence apartment.
The park where I watched the 70’s full - on come back through my window as I wrote these songs.
In Providence, when Hope’s harmless ‘Snow White Lies’ fall away and we can’t believe in anything anymore, we pace Blackstone across the park; a long empty strip of path, like a ship of lost souls. Last summer, a friend who was like a brother to me was shot and killed nearby. His ‘Ticking’ ticker stopped, no more time to measure with heartbeats, after only 38 years; his restless spirit riddled with holes like his poor body. I don’t like to see spirits this way, nobody does; it was all so dark. One morning, I helped dress his ch ildren for th eir dad’s funeral. So metimes Hope doesn’t help. I paced and paced Blackstone with the other lost souls, with the ghost of my dear gone brother.
‘Moths’ don’t necessarily burn when they seek light, though. And we’re still alive, and Dom seeing through his children’s eyes. Is th at Hope? I don’t know. All I know is that he was soon bathed in orange and glowing as he always had. 'Dom in Orange’ came singing through

the park and into the window that day as the sun set in a brilliant deep red - orange. And then all us ladies in our ‘Pink Nightgowns’ regrouping under porchlights up and down Hope; half - lit, light and shadow balancing and fighting, eac h of us our own ‘Sundial’. Music playing in the trees, where it always has.
When I moved back to our hometown, my brother asked me to figure out why we got kicked out of it, why we had no home. And yea h, I don’t know, we showed up here so loving. But vulnerability is strength. When souls choose to be human, they choose human frai lty. If every ‘Samson’ knew he signed up for this, we’d love each other more easily and live this bumpy ride hard. Which, I imagine, both incorporating on the material plane and music are for. We can’t help loving each other, as much as it hurts. “We bring so much sweetness to this bare path,” I thought on Blackstone one morning after a long night; all of us souls pacing with our love and pain. Choosing both - sharing sugar when we can, sharing Hope when we can’t.” - Kristin Hersh

A poignant and expansive record that radiates strength in vulnerability, ‘Sugar On Blackstone’ is another crucial record in H ersh’s ever -growing canon of work. Here Hersh's “powers of observation and capacity to live within her art, combined with her capacity for communicating sincere emotion with her audience, goes a long way to explain her enduring appeal” (The Quietus ).