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, and can at least count Sleater-Kinney as one of the handful of bands she influenced2. 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 at the expense of her 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.
September 17, 2025
Chameleons – Arctic Moon (Metropolis)
September 1, 2025
Lathe of Heaven – Aurora (Sacred Bones)
