This is the kick-off gig of a tour for Mary and band, which includes Jeff from Karate on bass and Christina Files--Mary's primary collaborator on the current album Mountains--on drums and electronics. Mountains is a wonderful album, but in this live setting they're breathing a truly exhilirating dimension, fullness, and power to the material--spare, baroque-informed songs with surreal dream-image lyrics that sprinkle pixie sand in the mind's eye. The ringing, sweetly dissonant chords recall Evol-era Sonic Youth at times, but Mary has lassoed its harmonic vocabulary into an aural language to do her own bidding. Most of her media attention has focused her songwriting and delivery, but I've considered er to be one of my favorite guitarists for a while now, and she's obviously been "dusting that broom" eve more of late. She switches it off with synth, piano, and violin during the set, without allowing the music's mesmeric spell o become uncast. "The Hour Glass" is an impressive composition, and although not an accomplished violinist [er, or viola-ist?--sic], Mary pulls it off with the odd grace that often defines the otherwordly moonlight buzz of her music.

-Kris Thompson
from the Noise #210, April 2001