Mary Timony's The Golden Dove Tour

Indie-rock siren Mary Timony hits the road today (June 6) for an 11-date tour supporting her critically lauded second solo album, The Golden Dove, released May 21 by Matador. The pagan-dada chanteuse will play intimate venues across the U. S. from Somerville, Mass. to San Diego, Calif. A European tour is planned for September, and in August, Timony plays Ladyfest D.C.

Produced in part by Sparklehorse creative savant Mark Linkous at his Sound of Music studio in Richmond, Va., The Golden Dove includes "Look a Ghost in the Eye," "The Mirror," "Blood Tree," "Dr. Cat," "The Owl's Escape," "Musik and Charming Melodee," "14 Horses," "Magic Power," "The White Room," "Ant's Dance," "Dryad and the Mule" and "Ash and Alice." Timony (guitar, vocals, piano/keyboards, bass, viola, synths and Akai sampler instruments) is joined by Linkous (synths and optigon), Al Weatherhead of Maki and Koester (guitar, pedal steel, Akai sampler instruments), and numerous additional players on select tracks.

Timony's pagan-post-punk/prog-rock/psych-folk, splashed with existential nihilism and bitter carnal knowledge, is spooky, sexy, trippy and righteous. Pretty, exotic tunes sometimes veer into mystical rockers with numinous guitar structures and a range of prog-y keyboards, lush viola and stark drumbeats. She's like a more literate and empowered Sarah McLachlan with a dash of Trans Am — but without the computer vocals: Timony's remarkably appealing mezzo-soprano, with its silky-smooth timbre, is possibly the most naturally beautiful voice among the top tier of indie songstresses.

Timony deconstructs the archetypal American Girl's nightmares, pulling apart tropes of modern life — relationships, sex and love — with fantastical imagery. She questions phenomena — is what we perceive with our senses truth? What's real? During production in December 2001, Timony teased fans, writing, "I've hired a band of 12 dwarves to play the bells and pipes on my [new] record." This wayward Snow White may have mulled over the collected works of Jung: death is all over the place in this Disney-esque underworld, where men are strutting peacocks. In the "Dryad and the Mule," Timony asks that oldest of punk rock questions, "If I hurt myself, will it hurt anyone else?"

Despite the neo-psyche swirl of images, Timony's aggressive femininity throws a bracing clarity into the mix like a beer in a dude's face at a party, undercutting the vapidity often associated with pagan imagery. An early review from the June/July issue of Magnet says, "Mary Timony has perfected an unsettling juxtaposition between the supernaturally sublime and garden-variety vulgarity. On The Golden Dove you can hear the woman who once famously longed to 'make love to a unicorn' sing (on 'Blood Tree') of a love interest who 'strangles me so delicately' before launching into one of the most venom-laced fuck-you notes since Liz Phair penned '6'1".' (The bridge takes the guy to task for showing off pictures of a naked ex before dismissing him as a 'dick.')"

Timony earned critical acclaim in the early '90s fronting Autoclave (Dischord) and, later, Helium (Matador). Today she's also in the space-rock band Green 4 and collaborates with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein in Spells.

Kill Rock Stars' 2-CD, 45-track Field and Stream compilation, released May 7, includes Timony's "Tiger in the Forest."

Information on Timony's tour and new release are available at her section of the Matador site. — Jillian Steinberger [Thursday, June 6, 2002] --