TOUR BEGINS ON RELEASE DATE OF HERSH'S NEW ALBUM, SUNNY BORDER BLUE

On March 6, 2001, singer/songwriter/guitarist Kristin Hersh kicks off a tour of Borders Books & Music locations across the country. In this series of in-store appearances, Hersh will perform songs from her new studio album, Sunny Border Blue, which 4AD/Beggars Group will release on March 6th. A limited number of collectible tour posters will be available on a first come, first serve basis at each Borders appearance.

The 13 tracks that comprise Sunny Border Blue provide ample proof that Hersh's music has only improved since the dissolution of Throwing Muses, the seminal post-punk band she founded at the age of 14. In her 15 years as a solo artist, Hersh has broadened her artistic perspective and sharpened performance and compositional skills. Her most compelling work to date, Sunny Border Blue is at once melodic and intensely emotional. As Kristin sees it, "the songs could have been written by the Monkees, but only if something really horrible had happened to them." Sunny Border Blue was produced by Hersh and engineered by Steve Rizzo. As on her critically acclaimed release Sky Motel, she plays all the instruments on the new record except for drums on "Trouble."

BIOGRAPHY:

Kristin Hersh's new 4AD album Sunny Border Blue opens with the words, "You know how it feels when the real world encroaches" - an apt introduction to this tour-de-force work of real-world pathos and hope… No sugar-coating here. Think of it as the harsh beauty that sparks in the midst of dramatic tension. Hersh's music is as much gripping, anguished and angry as it is quiet, stark and reassuring, and her words express an honesty of emotion that frees the spirit to soar while unflinchingly plumbing the depths of heartbreak and misery.

Sunny Border Blue - a collection of 12 new songs and a heart-wrenching cover of Cat Stevens' "Trouble," is Hersh's fifth solo album and fourth since the breakup of Throwing Muses (the seminal post-punk art-rock band she co-founded in 1980, at the age of 14) in 1997. Hersh, who plays all the instruments on the disc, recorded in a converted horse stable near her Rhode Island home, downplays this feat, "It wasn't like I was playing harp or bagpipes and the drum parts aren't exactly brain surgery, but when I work alone I can maintain focus indefinitely ­ for six months, in this case. The only other people in the studio were my husband Billy (O'Connell, who is also her manager) my sons and Steve Rizzo, the recording engineer (who also played drums on 'Trouble')."

As for the dark cloud that seems to hover over the songs, Hersh says that when listening to playbacks she was sometimes shocked herself. "I was stunned when I finally noticed what I was singing," she says, then adds, "I really don't feel that bitter." In fact, she's quick to point out that there is a sunny side to the music. "These are practically pop songs to my ears. Some of them sound like they could have been written by the Monkees, but only if something really horrible happened to them."

Once again on Sunny Border Blue, Hersh exercises her unorthodox approach to songwriting - in essence, being visited by songs. In an interview three years ago, she noted, "It's really true, the songs write themselves. I don't make them up. It's like I hear them in the next room. I know that my life pictures are all over the songs, so in some sense they're me. But on the other hand, it's like someone else using my life-stories and making them into something much better. And hopefully, they're not just my stories." She then laughed and declared, "I wish it wasn't this kooky."

Around the time Throwing Muses broke up, Hersh "ran away to the desert" and while living in Joshua Tree, California, experienced writer's block for a couple of years. "You know, that was wonderful for me," she says. "I was relieved of the burden of writing songs. They really were a blessing and a curse. For years and years I resented them because I felt they were bigger than me, better than me."

With her muse on hiatus, Hersh recorded a collection of Appalachian lullabies and ballads culled from the songs her father played to her when she was a child (the aptly titled Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight was made available only online). That helped set into motion another album project (1999's Sky Motel), where she felt more in control of the writing process. But during that time her distinctive mode of songwriting made its reappearance. "I was in a coffee shop in New Mexico and just burst into tears ­ which is so unlike me," she recalls. "Billy looked sick and asked me what was wrong. I was seeing music again, it was coming out of the speakers and I could see it. I know how this sounds, but it's true. We looked behind us and saw two old Indians blessing a guitar with feathers and burning herbs. It was almost as if their blessing bounced off the guitar and hit me in the back of my head."

The new songs made their way on to Sunny Border Blue, which was recorded between April and October 2000. It marks a new chapter in Hersh's songwriting career. "I don't feel like the songs are squashing me," she says. "I'm glad for them when they come. They pick up feelings I repressed and stories I forgot. They turn pretty into beautiful and ugly into real." Hersh explains that Sunny Border Blue is the name of a flower she saw in a Minneapolis park while on tour. "It sounds happy and sad, just like the record, which has a silver lining. I swear."

The following is a thumbnail sketch of and notes by Hersh on Sunny Border Blue's 13 tracks:

1. "Your Dirty Answer" "This song asks the question, what do you do when your vices are no longer sins?"

2. "Spain" "The first half was written about being in Spain and is as beautiful as Spain. The second half is so pissed off. After I recorded this Billy came out of the control room with tears in his eyes and said, 'We've got to talk.' Songs are big deals, just like kids. You can't shut them up. You have to accept their syllables if you want to be moved."

3. "37 Hours" "We could be a silkworm tightrope, but we're not." "That's from one of those nature shows on TV about how different kinds of animals 'do it.' The silkworm is unbelievably cool. They entwine their bodies while making a silk strand. This is a song about putting energy into a place where you're going to grow."

4. "Silica" "All I know about silica is that you can make both steel and glass with it. This is about being strong and fragile."

5. "William's Cut" "This is about looking back at the times when I felt indebted to people who had anything to do with me - whether they were working with me or sleeping with me or just being my friend. What I didn't realize until I got older was that these people could also fuck me over. There are as many reasons to be angry as to love."

6. "Summer Salt" "This is as sweet a love song as I'm capable of."

7. "Trouble" (Cat Stevens) "We rented Harold and Maude and Billy said 'Trouble' reminded him of one of my songs. I recorded it and thought that it fit well with the rest of the record."

8. "Candyland" "I lost a boy and now I look for him through every window and behind every door...My son went down" "Well, this is about my son Dylan, who's 14 now. I lost custody of him when he was three. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. We moved back to Rhode Island from Joshua Tree to be closer to him."

9. "Measure" "It's just one of those little studio fragments. I wrote it on acoustic guitar, but it sounds a hell of a lot better on piano. Essentially, it's saying: Can I trust you to reflect?"

10. "White Suckers" "You were nice but twisted/In this lame old story/We were a match made in purgatory." "Billy and I called ourselves 'white suckers' when we were first a couple. One day Billy xeroxed a picture of us on the front of a greeting card and inserted the description of a fish called the white sucker as a caption. This song is sweet and mean, just like me. But I'm only knocking Billy around. Love and violence. We mash each other into shape.

11. "Ruby" "The title comes from something my three-year-old son Wyatt said. He found an old cough drop in the car seat that was covered with lint and dog hair. He asked, 'Mom, is this a ruby?'I told him, 'If you have a cold, it's more valuable than a ruby.'"

12. "Flipside" "This is my 'Yay, I'm-not-dead!' song. I'm 34, the age when dead people in your life start piling up. Someone really important to me had just died and I never told her how important she was. There's hope here. The sweetness of life is never as sweet as syrup; otherwise we'd be numb to it."

13. "Listerine" "I really like this song. One of my friends was in the studio when I recorded this and got really upset. But it's just one of my 'Oh-my-stupid-life' songs. It's not melodramatic. It just says it."

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