mp3: Throwing Muses - Mercury

I love Throwing Muses, Throwing Muses’ self-titled album from 2003. I have to open with that because I’m often guilty of forgetting it even exists. Throwing Muses broke up in the mid-’90s and I had come to terms with that. Then they were back for a couple of gigs a million miles from me, and I had come to terms with not seeing them still. Then suddenly there was an actual new album and a proper tour, which resulted in my three gigs in three countries effort in the spring of 2003. It was all tremendous fun, but after so much time spent with Limbo as the last Muses album, I still struggle to shake that idea from my mind.

‘Mercury’ is the opening track of the self-titled album and bounds on with limitless energy. In fact, it’s almost reckless as it spins you around the room, which is quite rare in the world of Kristin Hersh, seeing as her song structures are typically so rigid, verging on the scientific and mathematical. It has highs, it has lows, and it has the pounding toms of David Narcizo. I really wish I remembered to listen to the album more as a whole. It is a personal favourite, and even if it’s to be the last album they ever produce together, it still works as a perfect starting point if you’ve never listened to them before.

In a couple of weeks the Muses will surprisingly be back in action. This time it’s in Iceland and a tiny scattering of gigs in America. A few hundred people will be lucky enough to experience it all, and once again I’ve had to settle for being too far away. But maybe sometime in the future they’ll surprise me with another visit. I tend not to spend my time hoping, but in the world of Kristin Hersh and her many musical ideas, any path is possible.