We Look Back On Blonde Redhead's Iconic ‘Misery Is A Butterfly’ LP

If your out-of-contract band is seeking inspiration for what will later prove to be a career-defining album, you could do a lot worse than having your jaw crushed by a big ol’ horse named Harry.

Hey, it worked for Kazu Makino, singer and guitarist for Blonde Redhead. She took that excruciating and traumatic experience, added her label-less band’s newfound artistic freedom, and parlayed it all into their landmark 2004 LP, Misery Is A Butterfly.

Makino spent months writing for the album with her mouth held tightly shut by wires lest the work of several expert facial reconstructionists come undone. When Butterfly references her accident it is sometimes overt, like on the track Equus, and sometimes subtle: the often galloping, percussive rhythms (played with scholarly precision by Simone Pace) are directly inspired by Makino’s continued passion for horseback riding.

But it was the lack of label pressure and intervention that empowered the trio (Amedeo Pace sings and plays guitar) to swap their droney feedback for string ensembles and clavichords, and create a work that is vaguely many things (post-rock? Motorik? Baroque?) but never itself vague. In fact, the tracklist is permeated by the same sort of focused dread that tethers records like Radiohead’s Kid A. Misery Is A Butterfly pulled the group’s earlier experimentation into laser-like focus and delivered something texturally and sonically singular, complete with buzzing old electronic organs and weirdly accented vocals.

Blonde Redhead might be what was spat out of a NASA supercomputer if you programmed it to generate the ultimate hipster art school post-rock band. They indulge in noise. They do soundtracks. They combine traditional and esoteric instrumentation. They perform in galleries. The other two members are freakin’ identical twins. And of course, the group is based in New York City.

Its earlier output was lazily lumped in alongside Sonic Youth, but from the Butterfly era onward Blonde Redhead has had more in common with something like a Mogwai or Sigur Ros. This is also true of their live shows, and just why the group has not cultivated as dedicated a following Downunder as those bands is an indie-rock mystery. That Blonde Redhead’s next Australian visit will present Misery As A Butterfly in full at Supersense, with orchestral accompaniment, is an amazing treat.

String arrangements are so integral to so many of these tracks - they deserve to be heard, the same way that The Ramones deserve to be heard loud, or that Chan Marshall deserves to be heard in a quiet room, or that Daft Punk deserves to be heard through an absolutely enormous PA with tonnes of sub-bass. If you only ever hear Blonde Redhead’s Misery Is A Butterfly once, hear it this way.

Click here for more info on Blonde Redhead's Supersense performance.