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The Real Ramona was a turning
point in American music. Released prior to Nirvana's
mainstream crossover, it is also the last
Throwing Muses recording released before Tanya Donelly left the band to form Belly,
and subsequently enjoy the widespread
success that the Muses never found. The tension
between half-sisters Kristin Hersh and Donelly at the
time of Ramona's recording -- between uncompromising
commitment to The Music and the pursuit a wider
audience -- is in many ways analogous to the tensions
that were prevalent in the underground community at
the time.
We're fortunate that Hersh and Donelly were able to
keep it together for one final recording -- the Muses'
fourth -- as they were both at the top of their form.
Hersh's songcraft and intensity again dominate the
recording, but Donelly had found her own voice as
well. Her breathy whisper provides the perfect foil to
Hersh's now-mature wail, and listening to them scuffle
-- both proud and majestic, one preeminent and the
other defiant -- remains a guilty, voyeuristic thrill.
Regardless of Hersh's mental state -- critics have
traditionally been quick to mention Hersh's struggles
with bipolar disorder -- this is a very patiently and
carefully structured CD. The Muses were relatively
early adopters of mathematical structures, and while
their angular, aggressive songs were odd at the time
of their release, they are much more accessible today.
The guitars run up and down scales while spiraling in
and out of one another -- a leaping, mesmerizing
effect -- while Fred Abong's funk-tinged bass and
David Narcizo's assaultive drums add magnitude and
gravity to the songs, effectively drawing us into their
sonic whirlpool and contributing to our sense that
there is something ominous occurring. In addition,
Ramona embraces unusual time signatures, but
abandons the broken time experiments of the group's previous
work -- presumably in an attempt to make the material less
difficult. The beats are prominent and primal, but as
listeners we are not necessarily enslaved to the
rhythm.
Though Tanya Donelly's two contributions to
Ramona -- "Not Too Soon" and "Honeychain" --
demonstrate her maturation as a songwriter, Hersh's
songs are the true vin de garde of this recording;
Donelly's tracks are the wines that were best drunk sooner. Hersh
knows this.
"I wanted a more timeless approach to
creating the songs. When you are attracted to ear
candy, it's because it sounds cool today. But it will
date your record in about five years. I don't know
what I was thinking, imagining that anyone would be
listening to the Muses in five years, but I still
didn't think it was fair to make the songs trendy."(1)
Hersh's songs have been fairly criticized as lyrically
indulgent and impenetrable, but most are quite lucid
and highly evocative, some even startlingly so.
Tonally, Hersh's voice is, to crib a phrase from
Lynn Rapoport, "like a bell about to break"(2) -- and
her phrasing, which deserves to be compared to that
of Billie Holiday and Rickie Lee Jones, is so
emotionally clear and honest that we understand her
meaning regardless of her words. When she sings "My
mouth is full of demons / I swear to god" in "Ellen
West", we believe her.
These are potent and determined songs, each one
ambitious and unapologetic. "Graffitti" blends a
classically popular guitar hook with an animalistic
treatise on territorial instinct, proposing that it is
our history with something that makes it our own ("I
see the sun rise over this wall / I watch it break and
slide/See my name on the wall"). "Golden Thing" exudes
frantic, greedy and constrained sexuality. "Hook in
Her Head" offers an exceptional glimpse inside one
woman's delusional perception -- an empathetic view
that recognizes her psychological
torment and extraordinary fortitude. "Say Goodbye" is
a furious break-up song in which our unappreciated
narrator acknowledges her own culpability ("I bought
this ball and chain for you / Don't you wear it?").
Hersh has admitted that some of the turmoil in her
life prior to the recording of the CD made it into her
songwriting -- in particular a separation and a
custody battle -- and even into the brief "Dylan", an affectionate, siren-esque lullaby about
her firstborn son.
Tension is both omnipresent and essential to the
success of this recording. Evoke vs. describe, form vs.
chaos, Hersh vs. Donelly, fashion vs. function; none of
these well-worn questions have easy answers, and the
Throwing Muses had to ask themselves all of them and
more. That they made so many right choices is what
makes The Real Ramona indispensable.
-- Evanston Wade
ENDNOTES:
(1) "An Interview with Kristin Hersh".
Salon. David Bowman.
(2) "Liner Notes". San Francisco Bay
Guardian. Lynn Rapoport.
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