Eszter Balint: Airless Midnight

If Eszter Balint made her name acting in Stranger Than Paradise and, more recently, on Louie, it’s time her music received attention. A songwriter, singer, and violinist (among other things), Balint shines, and she’s surrounded herself with a strong lineup (including Marc Ribot, Sam Phillips, and Dave Schramm) to manifest her vision on her third album, Airless Midnight.

The 10 tracks model Jarmusch cool, but the lyrics reveal a rural gothic side. Balint sounds like she could walk out of a Hopper painting and then stab a man in the Georgia countryside. Her characters move through violence and hurt, and when one of them says, “I stomp on the embers of meaning” in asserting dangerous masculinity, it comes with the knowledge that Balint The Artist is doing anything but that. She stirs the fire from all sides, creating fully imagined shadows.