|
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Singer and guitarist Mary Timony began in Washington playing with Christina Billotte (future Slant 6) in Autoclave. The group recorded two EPs, I'll Take You Down (Dischord, 1992) and Autoclave (Dischord, 1992), showing a remarkable personality: refined pop songs immersed in intense atmospheres. Timony then moved to Boston and, recruiting bassist Brian Dunton and drummer Shawn King Devlin from Dumptruck, formed Helium. The trio came to prominence in 1993 thanks to two songs marked by the guitars heavy distortions and the frustrated vocal register: American Jean (Warped), which revives the name of the Jefferson Airplane, and Hole In The Ground (Pop Narcotic). The EP Pirate Prude (Matador, 1994) emphasizes the irregularities of their sound, mostly through sophisticated recording and arrangement tricks. Yet their compositions thrive on intoxicating disarticulation, intrinsic instability, and structural imbalance. The album opens with the call-and-response of Baby Vampire Made Me (apocalyptic riffs and tribal beat) and Wanna Be A Vampire Too Baby (sparse chords), both sung in a pale, Renaissance-madrigal-like voice. On 000, the duet between the stunted guitar riffs and the alienated trumpet figures dominates. In I'll Get You, the duet is even between two songs, one sung normally and the other played simultaneously in reverse. Timonys fragile delivery is a constant emotional seesaw, and the group improvisation follows its course.
Dirt Of Luck (Matador, 1995), with Ash Bowie of Polvo on bass, is more concise. The tracks are shorter and less sprawling. Improvisation is regimented into rational patterns that essentially return to the traditional song form. The harmonic irregularities serve to instantly increase emotional impact, the same practice followed by the Breeders. It is no coincidence that the abrupt chants and sudden bursts of Pat's Trick (their first single) and Skeleton recall the Breeders. Their work remains a study in contrasts, with the guitar keeping time and the rhythm section creating maximum friction. The narcotic blues of Medusa and the flood of feedback and tribal rhythms in Baby's Going Underground, the medieval hop-step of Superball, and the waltz of Trixie's Star, with the guitar imitating John Cales viola, continually undermine vocal melodies, reject logic, and constantly question the song itself. The album symbolically closes with the most linear track, the delicate, fairy-tale-like Honeycomb and the disconcerting cacophonous Flower Of The Apocalypse. After the EP Superball (Matador, 1995), which introduces synthesizer and exotic moves, the five new songs on No Guitars EP, produced by Mitch Easter, present Mary Timony as a sophisticated singer-songwriter, making use of almost orchestral arrangements (organ, gong, Moog, banjo, tam-tam, ukulele, string section, and brass section).
The Magic City (Matador, 1997) is a transitional album, which on one hand (Leon's Space Song, the instrumental Medieval People) flaunts a commercial version of Timony, linking back to the punk-pop of Blondie and the Cars, and on the other hand retreats to the folk-rock of the Fairport Convention (Lullaby Of The Moths), while still retaining some experimental ambitions (guitar jams reminiscent of progressive rock). The guitar fuzz and slow cadences of previous records are replaced by a more agile folk-pop (Ocean Of Wine, Walk Away, Lady Queen Of Fire). The result is an extraordinary but confusing mix of avant-garde and mainstream pop.
The cryptic line "I wanna make love to a unicorn" best summarizes the cryptic and convoluted music and poetry of the album.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Mary Timony's first solo album, Mountains (Matador, 2000), arranged with guitar, piano, viola, harpsichord, occasionally cello and mellotron, sounds like an "unplugged" version of Helium's last record. Timony sails towards the world of fables and legends, wrapped in the eerie format of chamber music. In a sense, she explores the mythical landscape of her childhood fantasies. Too intellectual for its own sake, the album lacks good tunes that would benefit from her baroque/medieval instruments and fails in creating the Nico-esque atmospheres that Timony is struggling for. The lyrics of I Fire Myself and Poison Moon promise more that the music delivers. The odd structures of Painted Horses, The Golden Fruit and Valley Of The One Thousand Perfumes do not prevail, and the one pop number, Riders On A Stormy Sea, is nothing but a pretty melody. The idea is intriguing, the implementation is baffling at best.
Mary Timony's second solo album, The Golden Dove (Matador, 2002), offers more of the same, but the format has found a reason to exist. With her second album, Timony returns to earth, revitalized by a renewed sense of adulthood, while continuing the experiments with mood and texture. Magnificent arrangements are a little wasted on childish alt-tunes such as Look A Ghost In The Eye and Ant's Dance, but help illuminate and fuel the sinister fairy-tale quality of The Mirror and The Owl's Escape, solemnly frame the hypnotic Nico-esque dirge Dr Cat, the medieval and exotic ritual invocation of 14 Horses.
Timony's inspiration comes from distant sources. The vibrant, poppier, vaguely Indian Blood Tree would shine on a
Belly album, and Musik And Charming Melodee, copies its rigmarole and its syncopated pace from Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain.
These "post-riot grrrrls" madrigals, that often reference folk lullabies and children's nursery rhymes, are defined by the contrast between her timid, feeble voice and sophisticated orchestral textures. To top the disorienting feeling, Timony's lyrics blend the surreal imagery of "Alice In Wonderland" and Liz Phair's hyper-realism.
The question is: why does someone capable of the instrumental jam Ash And Alice waste her time writing little depressed ditties for sensitive little women? Mary Timony's next album, Ex Hex (Lookout, 2005), changed the perspective in a rather startling way, presenting a rough and tough performer that is not afraid of taking chances and is not so desperate to tell her secrets (In The Grass, Hard Times Are Hard, On the Floor). Her The Shapes We Make (2007), though, did not maintain that standard.
Helium's Mary Timony formed the all-female super-group Wild Flag with the Minders' Rebecca Cole,
Sleater-Kinney's
Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss.
The catchy bouncy and slightly old-fashioned ditties of
Wild Flag (Merge, 2011) mine a vein that is as old as rock'n'roll.
Experience accounts for the brilliant balance of verve and hooks in
Romance (with its limping deranged new-wave feeling),
Boom (hiccupping rant, granitic bass and anthemic organ),
Future Crimes and
Short Version, while mature songwriting explains the more composite
structures of
Glass Tambourine,
Something Came Over Me,
Racehorse (the grittiest moment on the album) and
of the limping voodoobilly Endless Talk
(with a circular organ riff that comes straight from the garage bands of the 1960s).
The rhythm never stops, but, despite the hype, this is so old-fashioned
that it could have been done by many garage bands of the previous decades.
Not exactly groundbreaking.
Mary Timony formed in Washington the all-female power-trio
Ex Hex with bassist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura Harris, that debuted with
Rips (2014), an unpretentious collection of retro garage-rock
that would have fit well in the Sixties revival of the 1980s.
Next to the
pop & roll of Waterfall, Don't Wanna Lose and You Fell Apart
there are
the Velvet Underground-ian Hot and Cold
and
the Tom Petty-esque Waste Your Time.
Nothing revolutionary but a diligent tribute to the music of Timony's childhood.
Unfortunately half of the songs are pretty embarrassing. This should have been a five-song EP.
It's Real (2019) only has the Joan Jett-esque hard-rock of Rainbow Shiner to justify its existence.
|
