"Hue Mirror"

In Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag once wrote: “Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” Well, my guest today on the program has recently been grappling with the use of the other passport Sontag is referring to and that grappling has yielded a song cycle that no matter what kingdom you find yourself dwelling in, will be moving, inspiring and transcendent." The Chicago born singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jess Robbins was diagnosed with AS, which is more specifically known as anklosing spondylitis, an aggressive autoimmune disease that can cause debilitating chronic pain as well as spinal inflammation and the fusing of the vertebrae. It's scary stuff, but part of Robbins' emotional healing was finally getting a name to go with the symptoms she'd been having for years. The other part of that healing? Making art. Robbins fronts the band Course and their new album Hue Mirror is an effecting song-cycle about navigating the complex and uncertain terrain of chronic pain, physical vulnerability and the uncertainty of the changes AS could bring. Hue Mirror is an unflinching and meditative look at how human frailty translates into art and that translation is where the beauty of this album really lives. Dark, probing, and unflinching, Hue Mirror is a stirring song-cycle that's punctuated by shadowy rhythms, vaporous percussion and and heavenly vocals. It's moving and powerful work but you don't have to be diagnosed with an illness to relate to it--you just have to be a human being with a big beating heart. After all, we're all facing an uncertain future and Hue Mirror is a way of facing it together.

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