August 8 [10:00 EDT] -- It's now official: singer and songwriter Kristin Hersh has announced that her long-running band, Throwing Muses, is calling it quits.

The band members say they can't simply afford to keep the group going anymore.

Hersh and her step-sister, Tanya Donelly, started Throwing Muses as teenagers in 1980, and built it into one of the most influential acts on the alternative circuit. Over the course of its 17-year life span the group earned a number of devoted fans, including such fellow musicians as Michael Stipe, Courtney Love, and Bob Mould.

Hersh is now working on her second solo album which is due out early next year, and Donelly (who left the band in 1992 and in favor of the comparatively short-lived outfit Belly) will release a solo album called "Love Songs for the Underdog" on September 9.

• Throwing Muses

Feb. 20 [12:00 EST] -- Throwing Muses will unfurl new material from its upcoming album "Limbo" during a live cybercast of the band's Friday night concert in New York City.

Forming well before "alternative" became a selling point, Throwing Muses have logged more than a decade as one of rock's true unsung pioneers. Kristin Hersh formed the group in 1986 with her step-sister Tanya Donelly (who left five years later to form Belly), and carved out a dense, swirling guitar sound.

Now, 11 years and a few line up changes later, the band is back with their seventh album, "Limbo."

• Throwing Muses