Throwing Muses - The Doghouse Cassette (1985)

Throwing Muses were formed in 1983 by Kristin Hersh and her stepsister Tanya Donelly, who were both attending Rogers High School, and initially called themselves Kristin Hersh And The Muses. The two girls were accompanied by bass player Elaine Adamedes and drummer Becca Blumen who were later replaced by Leslie Langston and David Narcizo respectively. In 1984 the band released their debut self-titled EP on their own Blowing Fuses label, and the following year they recorded a set of demos which they sold as a cassette tape, garnering a number-one college radio hit with 'Sinkhole', and extensive coverage in the local music press. The quartet impressed Gary Smith of local studio Fort Apache, who pointed them in the direction of British indie label 4AD, and they became the label's first American signing. The band's eponymous debut, produced by Gil Norton, arrived in September 1986 in the UK, but never received a US release, and so they missed out on the nine Hersh originals and the beautifully surreal love song ‘Green’, penned by Donelly.  Arresting, unsettling and sometimes downright scary, Hersh's work was like nothing in the rock canon to that point, the result of a much-misunderstood bi-polar disorder which caused songs to 'force' themselves upon her. The band's playing was extraordinary, joining the dots between elliptical post-punk, harmonious folk jangle and rockabilly thunder, without ever settling into standard genre patterns. Throwing Muses won instant acclaim in the UK, where I fell in love with them on first hearing, and their originality was confirmed by two EPs, 'Chains Changed' and 'The Fat Skier', in 1987. That 1985 tape, 'The Doghouse Cassette' as it became known, is a well-presented set of songs, some of which appeared in re-recorded form on their debut album, and so for fans of the band who have never heard it, or missed the 1998 CD 'In A Doghouse', which included the songs along with that first UK album and their second EP, here they are for you to check out. I'm currently enjoying re-acquainting myself with the band after way too long, and so there will more to come from them later.   

Track listing

01 Call Me 
02 Sinkhole 
03 Green  
04 Hate My Way  
05 Vicky's Box 
06 America / She Can't Say No  
07 Fear  
08 Raise The Roses 
09 And A She-wolf After The War  
10 Fish