Kristin Hersh’s side project 50 Foot Wave announce new single ‘Hog Child’, from upcoming album ‘Black Pearl’.
The enigmatic Kristin Hersh moves under many guises to satisfy her many musical urges. 50ft Wave serve as an outlet for the fuzzy, shouty end of the spectrum.
With the trademark time changes, key changes and a sliver of melody introducing a false state of calm, ‘Hog Child’ is a teasingly mellow moment that sounds perfectly baroque with Kristin’s vocal and her spidery guitar slowly dissolving into itself as bass and drums become the dominant forces.
Releases by 50 Foot Wave are few and far between and according to the press release; their hypnotic mixture of ice-cold uneasy listening carefully warmed into its own unique sound by the sun. They are travelling to other dimensions, an unyielding triad that creates a sound so much bigger than the wave they surf. the upshot being you best make the most of it as Ms Hersh’s orbit passes through this sector.
The last known sighting was 2016’s ‘Bath White’ EP and before that in 2011 on the ‘With Love From The Men’s Room’, 50 Foot Wave return with ‘Black Pearl’, as its title might suggest; an anomaly, a rarity, a gem. The title refers to the neighbourhood in New Orleans where the record was written.
50 Foot Wave, is Kristin Hersh’s ‘other’ band (active since 2003, with fellow Throwing Muses’ member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahlers). They are ever changing, enigmatic, flashing between moods, leaping walls of sound. From their very beginnings, the trio have been hailed in various quarters as “an outlet for the material deemed too weird or wild for Throwing Muses”, their “menacing, stalking, spirals of lean, hungry riffs, set alight” as “feedback rips into the fragile melody.” Detuned and discordant at will.
Where the Throwing Muses are articulate visionaries and Kristin’s solo material is introspective and tactile, 50 Foot Wave continue to traverse the crazed tension of their own sound.
‘Black Pearl’ set for release on 15th April on Fire Records.
