The Golden Dove reviews/articles
> tales from a true renaissance woman > The Golden Dove is Mary (ex-Helium) Timony's second solo album. Timony first departed from the upbeat Helium sound in 2000, releasing Mountains, which showed an interest in a more cryptic tone. The Golden Dove continues this evolution, combining folk and rock elements with Edgar Allen Poe-esque lyrics like "Take the telephone outside / Someone bury it alive." Her use of pianos and stringed instruments sounds much like the compositions of Shannon Wright while her voice resembles that of Cynthia Dahl. Like a tribal sacrifice, "14 Horses" uses repetitive lyrics and a steady drum beat, evoking the feeling of impending doom. Timony also throws into the mix songs like "Musik and Charming Melodee," which would make an excellent accompanyment to a midnight skinny dippin' party with its chorus "Music sets us free." Like label mate and ex-Come frontwoman Thalia Zedek, Timony has really come into her own by spliting from her male counterpart band to explore her own sound. With her second solo album, Mary Timony is broadening her musical talent and clearly succeeded in creating a diverse album. -Marie- original link > "If Mary Timony does nothing from this moment forward, she can rest assured that she has been rage-intensive, ethereal, lyrically phantasmagoric and allegorical (yet amazingly blunt) in an era when choosing just one would have been quite enough…Timony is Kafka with a touch of Charles Manson, a passive-aggressive, smart-ass feminist/angular guitarist bordering on existential beyond." - Magnet "The Rock N Roll industry perfected cloning long before the sheep in England or any other farm animal nonsense. It's ability to replicate and co-opt each and every threatening phenomena has demolished all attempts to rally against it's cultural stranglehold on the world; the one which has been so successful in hypnotising the collective global villa to march to it's neo fascist rhythm. The one thing they haven't been able to replicate is a woman from Boston called Mary Timony. Maybe because her music defies Rock N Roll convention in such an unusual and unexpected way, side-stepping blues tropes and usualities in a manner that's not self conscious or contrived but genuinely idiosyncratic; completely natural. Her skin was collected from a fingernail by a double agent at a cafe somewhere in Boston and shipped to labs in New Jersey for immediate extrapolation but replication just couldn't be achieved. Madame Tussaud was hired to construct her features in a digital imaging lab, whereby a faux Mary could serenade the world via MTV and blue jeans commercials; but she couldn't get it right. She retired soon afterwards. The wrecking crew were called in to reproduce the music in a more grungey and marketable fashion. Hal Blaine ended up in the hospital. "Who is this chick and how does she play like that?" he called from the ambulance. Mary didn't mean these people harm. She wasn't even aware of their sinister machinations. She was too busy creating the music for The Golden Dove and her other now classic records. The music through which she graciously invites you into her own world, where the normal rules don't apply." - Ian Svenonious - March 2002 Mary Timony unleashes more of her own brand of mysterious pop with her latest solo project, The Golden Dove. The album lends a refreshing twist to traditional song structures, exploring sound and composition in Mary's own inimitable style. Musically, she mixes up 60s psych folk and experimental electro grooves with lengthy guitar jams reminiscent of 70's progressive rock. The result is music of a melancholy beauty, sweetness tinged with darkness, conjuring images of middle earth, fairies, goblins and ghosts that lurk in every corner. It features contributions from Sparklehorse's lauded frontman, Mark Linkous, both on the production credits and as a guest musician. However, most of the music is performed by the ultra-talented Mary herself, a virtuoso guitarist and an icon to countless US musicians. Emerging in the early 90s, Timony and her band Helium swept up critical acclaim with their two Matador albums The Dirt of Luck and 1997's Magic City. Prior to Helium she was a member of the band Autoclave (Discord). She also is involved with the space-rock band Green 4 as well as a collaboration with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein called Spells. The Golden Dove is Mary Timony's second solo album, following the equally haunting debut, Mountains. A video for the track 'Dr Cat', directed by the very talented Brett Vapnek, will be available soon. original link > from salon.com June 10, 2002 Mary Timony "The Golden Dove" In the 1990s, Mary Timony was the driving force behind the crafting of three noisy, art-pop albums with Boston-based trio Helium. Timony launched her solo career in 2000 with the album "Mountains," and on her sophomore issue she further defines herself against the backdrop of the Helium recordings. Masterfully weaving her trademark fragile, melancholy voice with mystical esoterica, "The Golden Dove" serves as an updated invite into the fantastical landscape of Timony's mind. The album comes off as dark and mysterious and relies heavily on medieval imagery, reinforced by the eerie omnipresence of piano, cello and baroque instrumentation. (Production and playing credits are extended to Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous and longtime Timony collaborator Christina Files of the Swirlies.) In a kind of murky stream of consciousness reminiscent of Tori Amos, Timony splays her songs with lyrical phrases like "I didn't sleep for days, from the raven's gaze I escaped that horror," on "The Owl's Escape." Timony's post-Helium career is marked by her involvement with collaborative projects. She is currently working with drummer Carrie Brownstein from the feminist punk-trio Sleater-Kinney, and also has assumed vocal, keyboard and drumming responsibilities with the cosmic rock foursome Green 4. original link > Dusted Magazine 2002-06-04 > SF Weekly 2002-06-19 > Dallas Observer 2002-06-20 > Magically Delicious Tucson Weekly 2002-06-20 > The Daily Californian 2002-06-21 > from In Music We Trust The Golden Dove (Matador Records) By: Alex Steininger Helium frontwoman Mary Timony's second solo outing, The Golden Dove, finds the singer-songwriter crafting songs on both the dark and the melodic side of things. Her lyrical content is similar to her debut, with her either coming out and saying what she's getting at or coding everything for the listener to decipher. The album opens with a bouncy, semi-jangly indie-rock ditty, "Look a Ghost in the Eye", which manages to stay ahead of the indie bell curve, adding eerie strings and a dark(er) feel to the song, helping to propel it above your cliched indie-rock offering. "The Owl's Escape" is a haunting piano ballad, strings adding a moan, and Timony's voice lightening things up. "Musik and Charming Melodee" picks the pace back up with a mid tempo rocker, still strong on the melody, but not shy about wanting to elevate itself up above some of the slower, more methodical material on the album. And then there is "Ant's Dance", a melodic pop song paying homage to folk and Celtic influences. Timony manages to once again expand beyond what she did in Helium, without the listener longing for the band, or Timony sounding lost without them. This is a solid offering, a melancholy record that takes chances and shows growth. I'll give it an A-. [Issue Fifty // July 2002] original link > Pitchfork 2002-07-22 > from uttermusic.com Mary Timony - The Golden Dove Related Artists: Helium, Sparklehorse, Suggested Listening Activity: Dungeons and Dragons A long time ago, a band from Boston named Helium were one of the more creative and interesting indie bands in the U.S. They broke up in 1999 and the lead singer, Mary Timony, went commando, I mean, solo. After releasing two fantastic albums (plus a terrific debut EP Pirate Prude) with Helium, Timony unleashed her debut solo record in 2000. Mountains continued the weird journey that began with The Magic City, Helium's second album. Focusing on tunes that sounded like medieval hymns and magical musical spells than actual pop songs, the album was completely original and interesting, but was kind of a difficult listen for many. Co-produced by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, The Golden Dove sees Timony back in fine form, somewhere between the amazing harmonies she created with her old band while continuing the mysticism she conjured up on her last record. Immediately, The Golden Dove is a much easier listen. "Look a Ghost in the Eye" is a strong opening number, with a verse-chorus-verse structure, complete with warm strings, a flowing melody and Timony's patented guitar sound. From there, the album gets even stronger. "Blood Tree" is Timony's finest pop moment since The Dirt of Luck's "Superball". The first single "Dr. Cat", is based around a piano piece that sounds like it was written in a music box. As the album moves on, the songs get more experimental, traveling more into uncharted waters. "The White Room" is dark and hollow, reminiscent of an older Kate Bush record gone futuristic. Comprised of a cello, a distant piano, Timony's vocals and the whispering wind, the song sounds like a ghost's theme music. The Rhodes used on "Dryad and the Mule" and "Ash and Alice", which close off the album, brings a 60s retro feel to the music. Both share a prog rock song structure, but the latter trails off the album's course, heading into an instrumental jam session that leaves the record feeling incomplete. When a few seconds go by and a hidden track comes into play, the record gains its sense back and everything is tied into a nice little package. Hearing Mary Timony in top-notch songwriting form is really a joyous event. The Golden Dove is not only her strongest release since Helium's debut album, it is one of the better records released by anyone so far this year. Reviewed by C. Lindsay Rating: 4.5 out of 5 original link > from neumu.net rating: 7 out of 10 Mary Timony squeezed one full solo album out of 1997's The Magic City, her band Helium's final record — Mountains was a stripped-bare, almost minimalist collection of melodic, yet thin, extrapolations of themes and tunes from Helium's swan song. The record reaffirmed Timony's ability to minstrel-ize tried-and-true rock forms with Tolkienesque lyrics and whimsical, medieval guitar, but at the same time it kept her within the sphere of previous accomplishments. The Golden Dove propels Timony to the next stage of her development, even if it's a small push. Her second solo outing is not a dramatic change from Mountains. The role-playing-game lyrics, the upbeat but off-center guitar and keyboard parts, the deadpan voice tinged with disgust and longing are all still there, but this time out they're incorporated into songs with much more musical and emotional resonance. They're full songs, rather than snippets or ideas — fleshed-out, professional and helped by the presence of a full band. Mountains, with songs a far cry from the accomplished six-string epics that filled much of Helium's work, made people forget that Timony is a fantastic and powerful guitarist. But she is, and The Golden Dove slaps your face with it, bringing your attention back to what is arguably Timony's strongest suit. It hollers at you right from the beginning. "Look a Ghost in the Eye" starts with a high, mean riff that becomes, with a turn in Timony's deep, ripped-velvet voice, a loud and focused chorus. The notes she rends from the neck of her guitar are echoey, ghostly and as defiant as the inflection in her voice. Timony's playing is a soundtrack to a walk in the woods two minutes after dusk, with branches snapping somewhere in the distance and no discernible path to follow. "Haunting" is too easy a word; "dark" would seem to suggest gloomy. Neither word is accurate, yet neither is totally wrong. If Timony's lyrics can seem a bit silly and overdone at times ("Through the window, the Doctor goes, in the form of a cat. Is he a foe?" from "Dr. Cat"), the disarming strength of a line like "I don't care about you, and whatever it is that you do/ Doing drugs, popping pills, shouting out your window at girls" slashes through like a machete in the brush. Like the mask Timony wears on the album cover, these songs of fantastic creatures and hellish landscapes are, in the end, just a ruse. An effective and entertaining ruse, for sure, but a trick all the same. Timony's ability to lure you into a fantasy world of danger and deceit, and then suddenly shove you back into a real world just as dangerous and deceitful, is a talent normally possessed by great authors, not rock musicians. But Timony has never been just a "rock musician," and The Golden Dove is more proof that she never will be. by Neal Block original link > from fastnbulbous.com Mary Timony, The Golden Dove (Matador) 9+ In all the 90s hoo-ha about women in rock, Mary Timony was strangely overlooked. An underrated guitar virtuoso, she led Boston's brilliant Helium, an indie guitar band with subversively snaky prog rhythms and Eastern melodies. By 1997's The Magic City, Helium had become even more eccentric, single-mindedly focusing on Timony's obsession with a gothic fairytale netherworld of witches, dragons and faeries like a combination of the Grimm Brothers and Alice In Wonderland. Her 2000 solo debut Mountains dug a little too deep into the fantasy and forgot about good songwriting. The Golden Dove is a tuneful return to form, with some of Timony's most inspired, enigmatic work yet. Produced by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, the phantasmagoric songs are rooted in more substantial, detailed sound that complement's Timony far better than the poorly recorded Mountains. The song structures remain slippery, and there are few obvious hooks to be found (the chorus on "Blood Tree" is a nice exception), but songs like "Ant's Dance" and "Musik and Charming Melodee" rival Stereolab at their scintillating best. Traces of psychedelic pop, folk and space-rock can be detected. Timony's meandering melodies and eclectic instrumentation recall the spooky, nightmare-lullabies of Pram, but remain her own sound that she should patent -- pretty and prickly, a carnivorous flower. The delicately skulking "Dr. Cat" exemplifies Timony at her best -- sly, complex, sexy and creepy. -- A.S. Van Dorston - original link > from Stinkweeds Online Mary Timony impresses with her second solo record. The Golden Dove adds a lot to Timony's last effort; the arrangements are fuller, and the voice less timid then on Mountains. She has also moved further away from the quasi-prog Dungeons and Dragons lyrical thing that characterized the Magic City. There are some really great songs on this record, particularly the Liz Phair sounding pop-anthem 'Blood Tree.' 'The Ant's Dance' retains a bit of that prog lyrical element but adds a propulsive horn arrangement to a big drum beat for a song that rocks like prime Helium These songs are at once charming, mysterious, smart, funny, sexy, eerie, and mystical. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Mary Timony, and this album makes me remember why, she's angry yet inviting, tough yet soft.. There are some suspicious reference to classic/prog rock as usual, and a couple of songs fail to hold my attention, but overall it's an outstanding follow up to Mountains, and its also refreshing to know that Helium wasn't the end of the line. Mary Timony: she has come a long way since Autoclave. -Dan original link |
