Crooked

Throughout her career, Kristin Hersh has been forward-thinking not just in the music she makes, but in how she presents it. In the wake of file sharing and illegal downloads, she was one of the first artists to embrace creative release strategies, particularly with 2009's Crooked. Originally released as a book that included a download code as well as Hersh's commentary on the album and stems to make remixes of its songs, it gave listeners something tangible as well as something to explore on different levels. Hersh returned to the book format in 2013 with Throwing Muses' Purgatory/Paradise, with her 2016 solo album Wyatt at the Coyote Palace, and with her 2010 memoir Rat Girl, which offered more proof that her words were just as magnetic in print as they were in her songs. At the time, however, Crooked's pioneering release meant it wasn't quite as available to a wide audience as some of her other albums -- a shame, because it's a riveting example of everything that's compelling about her solo music. Crooked's songs are vivid yet open-ended, inviting listeners into Hersh's fascinating stories and confessions. Her songcraft is as startling and hypnotic as ever, especially on "Sand," a fine example of how effortlessly she swirls together fury and contemplation; "Fortune," with its slow-burning mix of affection and recriminations, is even more complex. The choppy rhythms and sliding chords she introduced on Hips and Makers sound familiar -- and just as striking -- on "Krait," where her imagery of a "sunburned snarl" is the perfect description of Crooked and her music in general. Elsewhere, "Coals" and the title track feel like harbingers of the heat shimmer intensity she brought to Possible Dust Clouds. At times, Crooked is as full-bore as Hersh's work with Throwing Muses. On the violently eerie "Mississippi Kite," she howls "You get burned/You get cold" as an electric solo sets the song's acoustic strumming ablaze. She takes that power in an entirely different direction on "Flooding," a premonition of the death of her close friend Vic Chesnutt that echoes "Your Ghost" in the way its cello melody steers the song through its arc of grieving and memories. Moments like this make Crooked a spellbinding part of Hersh's body of work, and the album's 2019 vinyl reissue is a step towards it getting its proper due. ~ Heather Phares