Editorial Reviews In 2002, Timony released her second solo album, The Golden Dove, featuring elaborate melodies balanced with pop-sensible hooks, recorded with Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, Jeff Goddard of Karate and Christina Files of The Swirlies and Victories At Sea. While many critics felt this record was more aligned with her work with Helium, the inclusion of more provocative and personal lyrics mingled with the fantastic and otherworldly landscape that Timony has developed and expanded upon throughout her musical career illustrated growth as a musician and songwriter. At the same time, Timony was participating in various musical and film projects including the mostly instrumental Green 4 and scoring a short film, "Dream Machine," notably. In 2004, Timony began work on the songs that would become Ex Hex, her latest solo album, with drummer Devin Ocampo (also of the band, The Medications) and producer Brendan Canty, of the band Fugazi. She had relocated from Boston to Washington D.C. and most of the sessions were conducted at the legendary recording studio, Inner Ear. Built around a foundation of guitar and drums, the album's 11 songs are a combination of stark art-garage stompers and beautiful spiraling musical landscapes all informed with Timony's signature vocals and lyrics. Ex Hex is Mary Timony's first release for Lookout Records, the California label known for having started the careers of Green Day, The Donnas and more recently the home of Ted Leo & The Pharmacists and The Oranges Band. * From Allmusicguide.com / Christopher Appelgren Musically, this album features sophisticated guitar and drum-based songs with a range of sonic textures but maintaining an insistent delicate urgency. A recent live review on WashingtonPost.com by Patrick Foster sums up "Ex Hex" best: "With spiral-staircase chord progressions and lyrical snippets that evoked mystic spells and relied heavily on metaphor, the density of her past work was evident, but Ocampo's stomping drum work flushed the tunes into a clearer place. The resulting sound suggested a pool of art-garage rock with withered flowers floating on its surface." Mary Timony has enjoyed extensive critical attention and acclaim. Starting out in Washington D.C.'s Autoclave, then as the frontwoman of Helium followed by two additional solo albums on Matador Records. "Ex Hex" was produced by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, also responsible for Ted Leo & The Pharmacists' "The Tyranny of Distance."
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About the Artist
Known for fronting the Boston-based noise-pop trio Helium, singer/guitarist Mary Timony was born and raised in Washington, D.C., later studying guitar at the city's Duke Ellington School of the Arts. During the early 1990s she fronted Autoclave, a short-lived but highly-regarded girl-punk quartet which issued an EP and a 7" on Dischord before dissolving; after graduating from Boston University with a degree in English literature, in 1992 Timony replaced Mary Lou Lord in an early incarnation of Helium, assuming full creative control of the group prior to the release of their acclaimed debut single "The American Jean." "Hole in the Ground" preceded the trio's 1994 Matador EP Pirate Prude; the brilliant The Dirt of Luck LP appeared the following year, and in 1996 Timony teamed with Shudder to Think bassist Nathan Larson, Dambuilders violinist (and former college roommate) Joan Wasser and drummer Kevin March in the alt-rock supergroup Mind Science of the Mind. Returning to Helium for 1997's The Magic City, Timony's songs revealed an increasing fascination with the fantastical imagery and sounds of prog-rock, a trend continued on her 2000 solo debut Mountains.*
Album Description
Mary Timony's latest effort "Ex Hex" reasserts her place as a central innovator, songwriter and singer in the American underground music scene. Timony, formerly of Helium, has teamed up with drummer Devin Ocampo (of Dischord's The Medications) to form this powerful duo.