Kristin Hersh Clear Pond Road (CLEAR VINYL)

Kristin Hershs new album is a cinematic road trip; a series of personal vignettes from a fiercely independent auteur, sitting plush with layers of all-consuming strings and mellotron. Its a watershed moment in a career overflowing with creative firsts and inspirational thinking; an elegant piece of personal reportage, a home movie caught in time.Previously, the juxtaposition of light and dark has been essential to the drama of Throwing Muses and 50FOOTWAVE, but this solo set is something of a departure; more inward looking, quieter but outspoken, underpinned by background noise for ambience and awkwardness.Passion sounds less angry, more grateful, I think, Kristin muses, sweeter, sadder. And somehow, no less alive& over car engines and rain in New England and whistling ducks and wind chimes in New Orleans, it all sounds wistful to me.Clear Pond Road is a life-affirming statement, a further part of the jigsaw, a very personal memoir, from street signs to snapshots; a late blossoming