The Boston Globe - 23.08.2019

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019 The Boston Globe G3

ByLauren Daley

GLOBECORRESPONDENT

C

elia Woodsmith is hardto reach.

Camping out in the Adirondacks, she was cut

off from cell service and the Internet for days be-

fore we connected for an interview.

Chris Hersch was able to talk first — before he

secluded himself at a meditative retreat, off the grid entirely,

just as Woodsmith returned.

But then, that’s kind of the whole aura of Say Darling: They

play when they can, whentheir schedules line up, for the joy of

it.

Music’s not a business for these two, it’s a passion.

“As much as Celia loves mu-

sic, it’s not the only thingin her

life, and I connected with that,”

says Hersch, 37. “I ski, hike,

mountain bike — anything out-

doors. She’s the same way.

“When we first played to-

getherin jam sessions, there

was a goofiness, a lighthearted-

ness, about her. I perceived her

to be someone extremelytalent-

ed, but not a victim of her tal-

ent. Her value system was in

the right place. Sometimes ex-

tremelytalented people, their

value systemscan be off.”

We talk a day before Hersch

leaves for a retreat at the Cam-

bridge Insight Meditation Cen-

ter. “I do retreats once or twice

a year. That’s helpedme

through this craziness of being

in music. I used to ride the roll-

er coaster a lot more,but I have

more persecutive on it now.”

As Hersch goes off grid,

Woodsmith comes back on.

“Chris has this Buddha-like

energy on stage, he’s very fo-

cused and calm,but manages to

be joyful at the same time,” says

Woodsmith, 34, in a phone in-

terviewonceshegetsservice.

“He complements my untamed

energy — I’m practically jump-

ing off the stage. You need that

yin and yang.”

Woodsmith also brings that

energy to Della Mae, her band

with two-timenationalchampi-

on fiddler KimberLudiker,

mandolinist Jenni Lyn Gard-

ner, and upright bassist Zoe

Guigueno. (In fact, she’ll switch

hats and play three area Della

Mae shows — in Charlestown,

R.I., Rockport, and North Truro

— after Say Darling’s Somerville

gig.

“I saw DellaMae at Passim

before I was in it — little did I

know I’d join,” recalls Wood-

smith, a Vermont native who

moved to Boston to join the

music scene as part of folk duo

Avi & Celia.

“Kimber asked me out to

coffee at Diesel [Cafe] in Davis

Square[in Somerville]and

asked me to sing. She was fed

up with the fact that there’s not

many all-female bands. And it’s

hard to get a job as a side-wom-

an — there aren’t many women

instrumentalists. Up until then,

I’d never seen an all-female

band, it was startling how rare

that was.”

When Martin’s Steep Can-

yon Rangers took a break re-

cently, the actor/musician

tapped Della Mae to tour.

“I can’t really compete with

Steve Martin,” Herschsays with

a laugh.

Hersch grew up in Orefield,

Pa., and moved to Boston to

study jazz guitar at New Eng-

land Conservatory, graduating

in 2004.

He played withGirls Guns

and Glory (which became Ward

Hayden andthe Outliers)

among other groups,and met

his fiancee while on tour with

the band in Idaho in 2011.

“We played a show in Boise,

and after I met her, I flew her

out here to see a [GGG] show at

the Lizard Lounge. I boughther

a plane ticket. My familywas

there, so she met everyone im-

mediately. Then I asked her to

move to Boston. It was risky,

but it worked,” he says with a

laugh.

Say Darling’s own meet-cute

starts at a bluegrass jam at

Cambridge’s Cantab Lounge in

2009.

“We just hit it off,” Hersch

says. “We started to jam at peo-

ple’s houses. Bluegrass players

play in kitchens,all over the

place, there’s all these bluegrass

parties. We always talked about

making a band, but we were

both involvedin all these differ-

ent projects.”

“I’d seek him out to play

with at jams,” Woodsmithsays.

“We loved similarmusic.”

They ended up as room-

mates, with a few otherBoston

musicians, when “we were all

just trying to make it,” Wood-

smith says.

Eventually in 2016, Della

Mae wenton hiatus at the same

time Hersch left Girls Guns and

Glory.

For the fun of it, they played

what they thought would be a

one-off at Portsmouth Book &

Bar in Portsmouth, N.H. It

went so well, they did another

show at The Burren.

They recruited noted Bos-

ton musicians — drummer Jar-

ed Seabrook, bassist Paul

Chase, and HammondB3 play-

er Scott Coulter — and released

a self-titled debut EP in 2017.

BetweenWoodsmith’s

smoky vocals, Hersch’s guitar,

the Hammond organ, and

powerful bass and drum lines,

Say Darling tends toward a big,

groovable, movable sound.

(YouTube “Stoned on You” for

an example.)

“Say, darlin’, say,” is an old-

timebluegrass lyric used in a

few songs, Woodsmith says, ex-

plaining the band’s name; she

used it in the song “Thread

That Shimmers.”

“We went with Say Darling

[because] it felt both like a

command— “Say darling,

dammit” — and like a gentle

way to address someone,” says

Hersch.

The band is now working

on their sophomore album,

slated for an early 2020 release.

Overall, Say Darling“was

an easy project to put together.

It never felt forced; it always

felt natural,” says Woodsmith.

“She’s the first artist I can sit

down and write with,” Hersch

says. “There was no fear of crit-

icism. For whatever reason, we

candothat.Anditfeltlikea

special thing.”

Lauren Daley can be reached

at [email protected].

She tweets @laurendaley1.

formedby Brownstein, Tucker,
and Weiss. They share someof
St. Vincent’s sonicchoices, but
they forged themon their own.
The break between Sleater-
Kinney’s past and presentgets
detailed in the album’s title
track and opener. “The Center
Won’t Hold” starts with distort-
ed synthesizer bass tones and
clankingsampledpercussion
that continue through the vers-
es, as Brownstein sings,with
desperate drama in her voice,
about opposites and paradoxes
— “I needa new reflection/
Don’t want to see my face” —
andvoicesanswer, quietly
chanting, “The centerwon’t
hold.” Suddenly, less than a
minute from the end, the old,
punky Sleater-Kinney reap-
pears, with grunge guitar
chords, pummeling drums and
Tucker unleashing her full me-
lodicscream.It’s as if the band
is showing what mighthave
been.
There’s nothing wrongwith
change, of course.The test for
every long-running band is how
to keep shakingup its own rou-
tines. But Sleater-Kinney hadn’t
been stagnating at all. The band
regroupedafter a decade-long
separation for the 2015album
“No Cities to Love,” resuming
its guitar wrangle but also ex-
ploringthe possibilitiesof lay-
ering. That album sounded
both brash and considered,cel-
ebrating a reunion and a re-

Continuedfromprecedingpage newed sense of purpose.
The mood is very different
on “The Center Won’t Hold.”
From the beginning, Sleater-
Kinney’s songs have chronicled
boththe deeply personal and
the broadlypolitical, and the
2016 election tookplacebe-
tween albums. What comes
throughthe new songs, even as
the production triesto make
things ironclad, is a sense of in-

security and futility. “Maybe I’m

not sure I want to go on at all,”

Brownstein singsin “CanI Go

On,” a foursquare,midtempo

new wave song that she delivers

with a CyndiLauper yelp in her

voice.

Sleater-Kinney confronts the

dispiriting Trumpera in “Ru-

ins,” a bleak,hollowmarch that

juxtaposesa staticky sustained

synthesizer with elegiac distort-

ed guitar lines,sampled gasps

and a chattering electronic

pulse: “You’re a creature of sor-

row/You’re the beast we made/

You scratch at our sadness/Till

we’re broken and frayed.”

There’s a call for solidarity in

“ReachOut,” anothermarch:

“The darknessis winning

again,” Tucker sings, amid blip-

pingsynthesizers that hint at

Tame Impala.“Reachout — I

can’t fight without you my

friend.”

I have beentrying to listen

to “The Center Won’t Hold” as if

Sleater-Kinney werea new

band,just another context-free

act in the streaming wilderness,

and thereis a stolid pop crafts-

manship in the new songs.

“Hurry on Home,” the album’s

first single, stompsand twangs

efficiently, harking back to Joan

Jett and the B-52s while flaunt-

ing an artificial chorale singing

“ahhh,” determined to grab the

ear. “The FutureIs Here,” a

dirge set to wobbly synthesizer

chords, bemoans the isolation

of days that begin and end “on a

tiny screen,” declaring, “Never

have I felt so goddamn lost and

alone” and bringing pop non-

sense syllables — “na na na na

na” — to its chorus.

Yet I can’t hearthis album

that naïvely. Tucker’s voice is

too distinctive, a reminderof

how raw and galvanizing Sleat-

er-Kinney has been,and how so

many of its songshave felt like

they wereclawing their way in-

to existence on the spot. Too

many of the new songssound

diligent and derivative, as if

Sleater-Kinney wereworking

througha pop apprenticeship.

Onthenew

album,insteadof

tense,fluctuating

humanfriction,

there’slayeredpop

architecture.

ChrisHersch(frontleft) andCeliaWoodsmithstartedSay Darlingafterheleft GirlsGunsandGlory andshewasonhiatusfromDellaMae.

A story of connections made

WhenSay Darling’sCeliaWoodsmithandChris Hersch collaborate, everythingclicks

It’s good to know that the group

doesn’t want to repeat itself,

that the band is also out to mas-

ter 21st-century digitaltools.

But on “The Center Won’t

Hold,” Sleater-Kinney hasn’t

found its version 2.0.

Sleater-Kinney veers off course on ‘Center’

So whenSay Darlingis play-
ing a localshow, like Friday’s
gig at the Burren in Somerville,
to their circle of fans,that’s a
drop-everything-and-go deal.
Woodsmith, of Kittery,
Maine, is part of the Grammy-
nominated all-femalebluegrass
supergroupDellaMae, recently
tappedby comedian-turned-
bluegrass musician Steve Mar-
tin and pal Martin Short as
theirbacking band.
Hersch,of Medford,was a
member of Boston Music
Award winners GirlsGuns and
Glory, before leaving because“I
was ready to explore something
new. Sometimes you have to
take risksand trust something
good will comeof it.” He now al-
so frontswestern swingband
Chris Hersch & the MoonRaid-
ers.

‘He complements

myuntamed

energy —I’m

practicallyjump-

ingoff thestage.

You needthat yin

andyang.’

CELIA WOODSMITH, on

performingwith Chris Hersch

SAY DARLING

At The Burren, Somerville,

Aug.23 at 7 p.m.Tickets $15

in advance,$19 at the door,

http://www.burren.com

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RENOIR

THE BODY,THE SENSES

"Thisis amust-see"

—TheWall StreetJournal

THROUGHSEPTEMBER 22

Renoir:TheBody,TheSensesis organizedby the ClarkArt Institute,Williamstown, Massachusetts,and the KimbellArt Museum,Fort Worth, Texas.

This exhibitionis supported by an indemnityfromthe FederalCouncilon the Arts and the Humanities.The Clark’ssummer2019 exhibitions and

programsare madepossiblein part by generoussupport fromDeniseLittlefieldSobel.Majorcontributorsto the presentationofRenoir:TheBody,

TheSensesat the Clarkare Robert and MarthaBermanLipp,AcquavellaGalleries,and the RobertLehmanFoundation.

Pierre

-Auguste Renoir,

Boy

wit

ha

Ca

t(detail), 1868. Musée d’Orsay.Photo credit:©RMN-

Grand Palais /PatriceSchmid

t/Art Resou

rce, NY