Rush on out and buy tickets to see Kristin Hersh at once. The indie rock goddess is honouring Edinburgh with a week long run of her show Paradoxical Undressing.
Paradoxical Undressing, for the uninitiated, is the removal of clothes and warm coverings by those suffering severe hypothermia. As anyone who ever caught the intense, wild, amazing shows of the Throwing Muses of the late 1980s and early 90s will have sensed that, for all the noise and bluster, Kristin Hersh is an introvert. Extraordinarily shy, paradoxically she is an artist of great emotional honesty and openness, and this show attempts to explore this paradox.
The project presented here incorporates Kristin’s hypnotic voice telling stories of the Throwing Muses, her own struggle with manic aspects of her personality, along with songs accompanied by her solo guitar.
It’s hard to capture in writing how affecting this show is. In the strangely ghostly setting of St Cecilia’s Hall, Kristin’s playing and vocals resonate, and the projections behind of Molly Cliff-Hilt’s paintings add to the intense atmosphere. The frank honesty, like the scary moments of thinking you’ve woken up with a snake wrapped around your feet, come alive with this slight, gentle, but ultimately awesomely powerful performer.
If this show featured an unknown actress playing out a fantasy, it would be worth seeing. The fact that it’s a real live rock star, telling the truth, makes it utterly unmissable.
[Kathryn Mack]
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