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Mary Timony

Hometown: Washington, D.C.

Discography: 2000, Mountains (Matador) 2002, The Golden Dove (Matador) 2005, Ex Hex (Lookout!)

After a spell in airy-fairy land with the ethereal Mountains and The Golden Dove, Mary Timony is returning to her Dischord-ant D.C. roots with an album more girl-punk than Ren-fair.

Timony started out her career on Dischord with the seminal girl punk band Autoclave. The band dissolved in 1992, and Timony moved to Boston to attend Boston University, where she joined the second coming of the band for which she is best known: Helium. The band released three albums on Matador in the mid ’90s to much critical acclaim. After Helium disbanded, Timony went solo, occasionally participating in collaborations with Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame.

On songs like Ex Hex‘s “Silence,” Timony sounds like a world-weary Lou Reed lamenting an uncommunicative lover. “Can’t you hear me call?” Timony asks. Her tone is utterly resigned to “the people on the street…[she can] hear their defeat.” Timony is back on the road this spring, going out for a small tour this month and then traversing the entire country come May. In June, Timony is playing a handful of dates with Sleater-Kinney. Ex-Hex comes out on April 19th.