January 31, 2025

Freak Scene #51: Heather Maloney Seeks Light on 'Exploding Star'

Plus, Bella's Bartok set up for a residency and Wallace Field once went to the Iron Horse in costume.

A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)

This week in Freak Scene, we explore Heather Maloney’s deeply personal new album, hear from Bella’s Bartok on the eve of their residency at the Iron Horse and are treated to a great anedcote from Wallace Field, who makes her Iron Horse debut tonight.

One of the standout tracks on Heather Maloney’s new album is called “Light You Leave Behind.” It’s a song about her father, who died suddenly in 2021, and his “stolen, golden youth.” But here’s a fun fact about light: When you look up at the stars, you’re looking into the past, at light they emitted tens, hundreds, thousands of years ago. Sirius, among the brightest stars in the night sky, is 8.6 light years away, which is how long it takes for its light to reach Earth. In a sense, then, light is leaving us behind.

That’s a central theme on Exploding Star. Throughout her first album since 2019, Maloney is gazing at the heavens, sometimes literally, and striving to keep sight of her father’s light as it arcs out into the universe. Losing him unmoored the Northampton folk-pop singer, and the songs here find her exploring her impressions of his life, her childhood memories of him and her reaction to the hole his absence has left.

His light is the magic-hour hue of a late-summer sunset on opener “Labyrinth in the Weeds,” as Maloney offers impressionistic glimpses of exploring paths her father would mow into the tall grass in their yard in New Jersey when she was little. “You made a labyrinth in the weeds,” she sings at first, before altering the words: “You made a labyrinth out of me.” The instrumentation is subtle, with muted guitar and keyboards leaving plenty of room for Maloney and her collaborators, Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot (a.k.a. High Tea), to blend their voices into wordless backing harmonies.

The harmonies are just as layered and lovely on the title track as Maloney comes to terms with the prosaic tasks that follow the death of a loved one, while wondering, “Are you floating in the cosmos / Finally free from time?” over strummed acoustic guitar. The song is one of several on the album that reflect her fondness for sharply defined vocal rhythms, where she delivers lyrics with staccato emphasis that emphasizes their internal rhymes: “Should I be looking for your message in cloud-shaped snowflakes / Eyes to the sky for some almond golden / Light to warm your empty chair / A song for the heavy air/ Coincidence, significance to believe you’re there.”

She takes a similar vocal tack on “Light You Leave Behind.” In this case, the light in question could be coming from the headlights of her father’s car as he blazes down the road toward Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, where he often sneaked in to see bands in the mid-’70s when the former baseball stadium held concerts. With a pulsing rhythm from guitar and percussion, the song has a low-key anthemic feel as Maloney celebrates her dad for the things he overcame in his own young life to become a rock in hers.

It’s maybe the most tender track on an album full of songs that are heartfelt and sometimes raw — her loneliness and heartache are wrenching on “To a Special No One.” In fact, apart from a cover of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” that is, well, ordinary in comparison to the original material on Exploding Star, Maloney’s music has never sounded so personal, or so vulnerable.

Heather Maloney performs Feb. 7-8 at the Iron Horse in Northampton. Both shows are sold out.

Bella’s Bartok Have Plans for Iron Horse Residency

The last time that Bella’s Bartok had a musical residency in the Valley, it was at the Northampton restaurant and bar Hinge before the place shut down in 2015.

“We had recently graduated college and the world was our oyster,” singer and guitarist Asher Putnam says by email. “We cut our teeth and honed our craft at that place — meeting great bands and other creative folks, even signing with our first booking agency.”

After more than a decade, and various LPs and EPs (including 2023’s Apocalypse Wow!), Bella’s Bartok is back for a multi-gig run at the Iron Horse. The theatrical goth-folk-punk band plays three monthly late-night shows, each with a different theme, starting this Sunday, Feb. 2, with the Greys supporting. Putnam thinks of it as reintroducing the band.

“The Valley scene has shifted, not only because of the pandemic but because so many folks are essentially transient — either because of college or grad school or the ever increasing cost of living under the Trump and Biden administrations,” Putnam says. “We’re lucky to have been a touring act for so long, but that also means we’ve become disconnected with the local scene. It's time to remedy that and the Iron Horse has given us such an opportunity.”

The theme for Sunday’s show is ’80s Goth Night. “Why? The aesthetic! The mood! And quite frankly, a direction we are exploring sonically,” Putnam says. “It still gives the ‘beyond the veil’ dance-vibe that has always been us, with a hint of adult theatre kid which has been our general direction since we formed as a folk-punk band.” 

The second night, March 22, will pay homage to the early ’90s heyday of MTV Unplugged, with the DiTrani Brothers opening. “We're hoping to let our fans and the audience at large [have] a glimpse into our world, a one-night only experience where the focus of the show is the story of our songs,” Putnam says. “I personally can't wait to talk about the tunes and approach them in a different way than our tried and true electric mayhem stage performance.”

Film and Gender open night three, on April 18, which has a funeral theme befitting Bella’s Bartok’s reputation as “Halloween the Band.” “Quite frankly, that description (whilst perhaps uttered in jest) is honestly spot on,” Putnam says.

Wallace Field Makes Her Iron Horse Debut With High Tea

Wallace Field plays her first show at the Iron Horse tonight, Friday, Jan. 31, when she co-headlines with High Tea (tickets). As a music fan who grew up in the Greenfield area, performing at the venerable club is a big deal for Field.

“To be able to play there is a dream come true to me,” says Field, who released her first solo LP, All Costs, in 2023 (I wrote about it for the Boston Globe). Not only is the venue prestigious for touring musicians, “It’s an opportunity for local acts like myself and High Tea that hold down the music scene year-round, it’s a way that we can prove ourselves and show not just the Valley, but folks outside the Valley that we have a really great scene here.”

Though tonight is Field’s first time playing the Center Street venue, she’s gone to plenty of shows there as a fan. A Lake Street Dive performance in 2011 or ’12 is among the most memorable, not least because it coincided with Halloweekend at UMass, when students wear costumes to parties all weekend long. Field was a student journalist at the time, and was covering the show.

“We showed up to the Iron Horse dressed to the nines in our Halloween costumes on a Friday night — Halloween is on a Monday or something — and my friend is a bloody mime, blood all over her face,” Field says, laughing. “We walk in late, everyone stares at us, no one else is dressed up, obviously. My friend, again, is a bloody mime. There was no place for us to sit but the stairs, so we watched Lake Street Dive perform that way.”

Suffice to say that Field has no plans tonight to re-create that Halloween scene.

Upcoming Concerts

It’s been cold enough to freeze the pipes below your under-insulated kitchen cabinets for days (er, so I hear), but the summer shows are coming: Summer Stage at Tree House Brewing Company in South Deerfield hosts JJ Grey & Mofro July 16 (tickets) and Trampled by Turtles July 23 (tickets). (I once had a boss who thought “Trampled by Turtles” was the funniest band name he had ever heard. Nice guy, but …)

Meanwhile, Goose play the Westville Music Bowl June 29 (tickets).

There’s plenty happening before then. The Iron Horse features Stanley Jordan March 16 (tickets), Swedish folk duo Väsen April 7 (tickets), Nels Cline's new Consentrik Quartet April 8 (tickets), the Lightfoot Band April 24 (tickets), New York jam band Escaper April 25 (tickets), Brett Dennen April 27 (tickets), Andrew Duhon May 22 (tickets) and two nights with Rickie Lee Jones June 27-28 (night one, and night two).

If Northampton is a haul for you, Cline is at the Space Ballroom in Hamden April 9 (tickets) and Dennen is at the Warehouse at FTC in Fairfield May 6 (tickets). The Space Ballroom also hosts Maine country duo 12/OC April 13 (tickets), La Luz April 15 (tickets), Swervedriver April 25 (tickets) and May Erlewine May 2 (tickets).

Freak Scene generally doesn't do cover bands, but we'll make an exception for Mac Sabbath, a parody act that reworks Black Sabbath songs with lyrics about fast food. They're at the Warehouse at FTC May 4 (tickets).

Pink Martini play the Academy of Music in Northampton Oct. 17 (tickets).

This weekend, there’s a heavy lineup at the Marigold Theatre as Boston’s Sundrifter performs with Easthampton’s Problem With Dragons, Hamden, Conn., band Curse the Son, New Haven’s VRSA and an acoustic performance from Benthic Realm (tickets).

Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.

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