Poor Norma Bates. For much of the Psycho canon, the mother that possessed her son to stab pretty ladies didn’t even manifest as a living character; audiences mainly saw her through Norman, who would dress in her likeness when her persona took over. There’s a lot to unpack from that. Horror movies, after all, often magnify the subconscious fears of an era. Ergo, the woman who raises her child alone and haunts him enough to incur an involuntary gender swap should reflect outdated taboos that used to hold sway in American culture. Granted, over 30 years later, a much more literal cross-dresser would creep into The Silence of the Lambs as a serial killer, so maybe not.

At any rate, I didn’t know any of this context whenever I heard Stone Irvin slip this burbling witch’s brew into her live set as Haint. And I always loved it before, in part for the reasons that I always love Haint—the tangled guitar that ensnares you in its webs, the wonky backing track shorn from Arthur Russell’s disco phase, Irvin’s dramatic croon. (She’s gotten quite good, as I’ve told her before, of phasing between Tim and Jeff Buckley when she slaps on the fuzzbox.) But “Norma Bates” always fascinated me—not just because of the open threats, but in the way that Irvin took on this malicious spirit as her own, shamelessly relaying bloodlust through the cross-wired confusion. I see now that this sinister tribute aims to grant sentience to the nightmare outside of her son’s blunted psyche, in the same way that Wide Sargasso Sea granted independence to Jane Eyre’s woman in the attic: “I could turn the baleful eye to lay siege and set fire.” Nothing says agency like a great fire that devours both your enemies and yourself, purging the old shackles to release the new form. Ergo—goodbye Norman, hello Norma.

HAINT will perform on Sat., Nov. 17 at TRNS PWR Fest at the Bakery alongside Edgeslayer (NOLA), Royce Hall, Tears for the Dying, Micky Bee, JayBella Banks, Deku, Mystery Meat, Video Tronic, Perka-$exxx, Ivy Faie, and more. Doors open at 11 a.m. Admission is recommended sliding scale of $5-20, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. All ages.

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