I throw your head across the ice
I throw my head through a window
Crash
Like poetry
Throwing Muses, Delicate Cutters, 1986.
The career of the solo singer / songwriter is fraught with difficulties: if you consider yourself lucky enough to be signed to a major label, it’s probable that if your first or second single isn’t a success, you’ll be dropped, possibly without ownership of the material you’ve written in the process. Some may be seduced into diluting their craft to satisfy their masters. Others will become disillusioned or attempt a career relaunch with another label. The smart ones don’t bother any of this: it’s no coincidence that the more interesting artists reach out to the internet for their audience, often setting up their own record company in the process.
Hannah Fury has single-mindedly sought her own path straight from her 1998 debut EP,
Soul Poison. Subsequent releases have proven the benefit of taking this approach. None more so than her second album,
Through the Gash, an album that treats affairs of the heart with the same intensity that others might treat mania. To quote Throwing Muses again: shocking is therapy.
Those listeners who ached for Through the Gash to be a continuation of her first album The Thing That Feels, may be disappointed. I was at first: it does seem to be quite a departure from the days of the Wicked inspired piano ballads and the arresting The Vampire Waltz. Listen some more and the relationship proves more subtle: Through the Gash gets its strength and exposes Hannah’s increasing confidence through the more varied use of keyboards. So whilst piano lovers will have to dig deeper to find the percussive melodies that dazzled throughout The Thing That Feels – and they are present – the corresponding pay-off is that her vocals and lyrics have a greater opportunity to impress, especially during the slower songs.
I am in no way trying to pimp Hannah Fury’s back catalogue, but to get the best out of this album, you have to listen to her entire body of work. Other artists, particularly Kristin Hersh, repeat words and imagery across their songs as coincidental reflections on their afflictions. With Hannah, the most obvious phrasing revolves around the album title (with its attendant interpretations), together with love, scars, sugar, hearts and, inevitably, Marie Antoinette. Through the Gash becomes unique on two counts: by making oblique references to previously released songs, and by being self-referential, lyrically and musically. One might consider this re-use to be lazy, but that would be wrong. The re-use is so meticulous that it has to be intentional. Such intricate songwriting and execution rewards attentive listening. But it’s not just the lyrics which work this way.
One superficial review of this album has dismissed the songs as simple half-spoken vocals passed through various delays, underneath which some simple piano lines are played. None of this is correct: the album is bursting with individually processed multi-tracked vocals – whispered, sung, half-sung, spoken, gasped and screamed. Effects drop out mid-measure, each line a further opportunity for a different realisation. Hannah’s approach to the mixing and production of this album is closer to the way that techno artists tweak and cut notes, sounds and push the beats by single digit milliseconds to get the desired results. There are often multiple melodies within each song, either acting to support or break away from the vocals. The piano work an advance on that debut album. Vocal tracks coalesce and separate to build a dynamic that often destroys the distinctions between verse and chorus. The production is extraordinary.
You’ll realise by now that I’ve not mentioned any individual song: it would be unfair to single out songs to identify one or more of the qualities I’ve explained above. (See my earlier reviews of these songs: No Man Alive, Where the Wounds Are, Defenestration, You Don’t Leave A Trace, Girls That Glitter Love the Dark). The lyrics are too rich to reach any specific conclusion other that what I wrote in my opening paragraph. The fact is, these songs take time to digest. Listen and judge for yourself.
I’ve listened to this album dozens of times. Provided you treat it with respect and don’t drown in it, you may find it to be the best solo release in recent years. Here’s a tip: play it loud. But, there is one more thing: it holds a remarkable secret which I’m only just uncovering. Not that it towers above its peers, that much is clear, but that it’s a better album than Hannah may think it to be.
Through the Gash is available now, released on MellowTraumatic Recordings.
Through the Gash – iTunes UK
Through the Gash – iTunes US
Hannah Fury: Last.fm
Hannah Fury: MySpace
