Search - Eszter Balint :: Mud

On Mud, Eszter Balint displays a singular vision that filters elements of country and blues through a jagged-edge urban sensibility. If you had turned a corner in Lower Manhattan and discovered the flickering lights of a wood-frame juke joint shimmering from the far end of some shadowy alley, the sound floating towards you in the darkness might be something like this. From the first snarl of the slide guitar in opening track "Pebbles & Stones," you?ll hear the mystery and menace that distinguish most of these starkly arranged tunes. But once Eszter starts to sing in her hypnotic, unsentimental voice, you?ll discover there?s a lot more to Mud than atmosphere. Eszter is a terrific storyteller, terse but evocative. "You?ll come out of this alive," she assures someone ? maybe the listener? -- over the stripped-down blues-funk of "Good Luck." "You?re just stuck in a bad dream tonight." On Mud, bad dreams have never sounded so good. An accomplished musician who has contributed both violin and vocals to recordings by cutting-edge talents like Marc Ribot and Michael Gira, Eszter has long been a notable figure on the downtown Manhattan music and movie scene. The players she?s assembled here ? Michael DuClos, Chris Cochrane, and Nic Brown ? have backgrounds in rock-jazz-noise combos like Curlew and Skeleton Key. Co-producer and guitarist J.D. Foster has worked with artists ranging from Dwight Yoakam to Ribot. With Eszter, he manages to keep these songs musically and emotionally direct, while allowing enough unpredictable touches to give each one of them a unique, not-quite linear shape. The arrangements may generate a lot of tension, but, in the end, Eszter and Foster let the listener off sweetly, with a piano-and-voice balled called "Who Are You Now" that serves as a gentle denouement to these backwoods urban dramas. Who are you now? You might just be asking yourself that after you experience the persepective-altering sound of Mud.