Жанр: Freak-Folk, Indie, Psych-Folk, Psych-Rock Производитель диска: USA Страна: USA Год выпуска: 2001-2013 Аудио кодек: FLAC Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Источник: собственные рипы + web Продолжительность: 8 часов 32 минуты 30 секунд АЛЬБОМЫ:
Josephine Foster - Little Life (2001) Жанр: Indie, Folk Страна-производитель диска: UK Год записи альбома: 2001 Год издания диска: 2013 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: FIRELP268 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 22:17 Источник: собственный диск Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Shay Shay 2 Stones In My Heavy Bag 3 Charles In The Park 4 Francie's Song 5 Run Maroona 6 Three Day Days 7 Tom Peck, Neighbor Friend 8 Birdo 9 Warsong 10 Hells Bells Are Ringing 11 Little Life
*** Little Life is a home recording made by Josephine Foster in 2001. Although she had been writing songs for years, the idea to record something was new to her as she had previously notated her music longhand. Inspired by her work as a music teacher to young children, she recorded this collection of miniature songs to 4-track. Little Life helped to usher in a reformed and more personal manner of singing and songwriting for Foster, leaping down from her opera stage training to the hermitage of the classroom.
Josephine Foster - The Children's Hour (2002) #777Жанр: Indie, Folk Страна-производитель диска: USA Год записи альбома: 2002 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 13:06 Источник: what.cd Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Wyoming 2 The Lumberjack Song 3 Mary 4 Going Home
Josephine Foster And The Supposed - All The Leaves Are Gone (2004) #777Жанр: Indie, Acid-Folk, Psych-Rock Страна-производитель диска: USA Год выпуска диска: 2004 Издатель (лейбл): Locust Music Номер по каталогу: LOCUST 62 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 46:53 Источник рипа: what.cd Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Well-Heeled Men 2 The Most Loved One 3 All The Leaves Are Gone 4 Nana 5 Deathknell 6 Silly Song 7 Jailbird (Hero Of The Sorrow) 8 Worried And Sorry 9 Who Will Feel Better At The Days End? 10 John Ave. Seen From The Gray Train 11 Don't Wait, Mary Jane 12 (You Are Worth) A Million Dollars Dusted Magazine Раненая, но ещё не мёртвая рок-музыка находится в постоянных поисках нового материала, и не было ещё периода в котором бы она так часто менялась или рождала что-то новое, как в шестидесятых. Эта декада едва начавшись уже обогнала всех своих музыкантов, находящихся в коллективном забеге, молодых и старых, демонстрируя необычно одетых персонажей ищущих вдохновения. 60-е были периодом юности рока, и это может быть легко доказано тем, что в течении тех 10 лет музыка претерпела большие изменения, чем за последующие 30. Теперь, с пришествием бума нео-фолка, преданность "психодел"-декаде обещает очередной взрыв интереса посредством новых групп и их фанов. Но не все эти жаждущие идей исполнители достигли цели, записывая пластинки, которые до сих пор звучат подлинно. Несмотря на это, "All The Leaves Are Gone" - дебют Джозефин Фостер и The Supposed - один из таких дисков, альбом, который мог бы быть вытащен из пыльной груды лонг-плеев найденных в Haight-Asbury. Выпущенная на чикагском Locust Music 47-минутная запись представляет собой клубок полуобморочного вокала, гудящих электрогитар и проникающей, узорчатой неясности. Несмотря на то, что на предыдущем совместном диске с басистом Джейсоном Ажемьяном (Jason Ajemian), носящем название "Born Heller", Джозефин Фостер играла скорее дарк-фолк, здесь же она меняет наше представление о современной рок-музыке. Ударник Расти Петерсон (Rusty Peterson) и гитарист(басист/вокалист) Брайан Гудман (Brian Goodman) аккомпанируют Фостер, образуя непонятную структуру вокруг её шестиструнной гитары и её сладкоголосого пения. Её голос имеет особую, характерную только для неё и не характерную для рок-музыки, впечатляющую особенность, которая обусловлена прежде всего её оперным вокалом, и которая выливается здесь в удивительные формы. Несмотря на то, что вначале в основном впечатляет явная сила и блистание её классического вокала - есть повод поставить Джозефин Фостер в один ряд с такими выдающимися исполнителями как Дилан - её якобы-сентиментальное и экстатическое пение служит прекрасным подспорьем для неровных, витиеватых композиций. На открывающем диск треке “Well-Heeled Man” Гудман оборачивает змееподобные витки звуков электрогитары вокруг дрожащих тамбуринов и псевдо-танцевальных джазовых связок ударной установки Петерсона. Титульная композиция "All The Leaves Are Gone" звучит в духе непритязательного кантри-рока конца 60-х в исполнении Byrds, непродолжительное время возглавляемых Грейс Слик (Grace Slick). В остальном же, Фостер и команда балансируют где-то между тёмным, атональным фолком и эмоциональным, неудобным арт-роком, ничуть не умаляя достоинства самих композиций. Определяющим фактором для звучания записей подобного рода является не время их создания и не соответствие эпохе их создания, а связь музыки и её обработки в создании живого звучания. "All The Leaves Are Gone" представляет собой интереснейшее проявление ретро-рока, и что наиболее важно - обнаруживает группу молодых музыкантов, которые способны привлечь внимание созданием внушительного музыкального отчёта.
As rock music – wounded, but certainly not dead – limps along in its constant quest for new material to mine, no era is turned to as frequently or stared at as wonder-eyed as the 1960s. The decade had hardly come down from its collective trip before musicians, young and old, were parading wildly dressed skeletons from their closets, looking for inspiration. The ’60s was the decade of rock’s adolescence, and it can be argued that young music grew more during those 10 years than it has in the 30 since. Currently, what with the way-over-hyped “New Folk” explosion, allegiance to the Psychedelic Decade is getting pledged anew by a fresh group of bands and fans. Of all the artists pining the period for ideas, few succeed in making records that are so out-of-time that they actually sound authentic. However, All The Leaves Are Gone, the debut from Josephine Foster & the Supposed, is one such disc, an album that could have been plucked from a pile of dusty LPs found in a Haight-Asbury basement. Released on Chicago’s Locust Music, the 47-minute collection is a tangle of swooning vocals, tickly electric guitars and an omnipresent, incense-laced haze. While last spring’s Born Heller disc found Foster and bassist Jason Ajemian crafting dark parlor-folk, here Foster lets the rock rip. Drummer Rusty Peterson and guitarist/bassist/vocalist Brian Goodman back her, weaving trippy textures around her finger picked six-string and velvet-throated vocals. Foster’s voice has always been her most identifiable – and impressive – feature, and the opera school dropout is in fine form here. While initially, the sheer strength and classically trained sheen of her voice can be overwhelming – there’s a reason dudes like Dylan are among rock’s greatest vocalists – her syrupy swoons offer the perfect counterpoint to the ragged backing tracks. On opener “Well-Heeled Man,” Goodman wraps serpentine coils of electric guitar around Peterson’s dancing snare rolls and shivering tambourine rattles. The catchy, country-rock of the title track sounds like late-’60s Byrds fronted by a less drug-dazed Grace Slick. Elsewhere, Foster and friends swing from moody, forest-folk to rambunctious art-rock squall, while never obscuring the simple majesty of the songs themselves. What makes or breaks a rock record is not when it was made, or when it sounds like it was made, but whether the songs and instrumentation bind together to create something that sounds vital. All The Leaves Are Gone offers a fine time-traveling display of retro-rock. More importantly, it shows a young batch of musicians comfortably and commandingly making a musical statement that demands attention. By Ethan Covey
Placing All the Leaves Are Gone in the CD player is a little like a time warp. Is the album a reissue of an obscure '60s group from San Francisco? Or is it, perhaps, a contemporary recording (2004) that evokes yesteryear? In the case of Josephine Foster & the Supposed, it's the latter. The easiest comparison would be to Jefferson Airplane, circa 1967, with out of kilter melodies in minor keys and the guitars barely in tune. Foster plays the part of Grace Slick here, but she sounds more like Maddy Prior on acid. Her hippie, drug-induced vocal delivery is supported by the Supposed, who are guitarist/bassist Brian Goodman and drummer Rusty Peterson. While instrumental parts seem to have been dubbed here and there on All the Leaves Are Gone, the arrangements are mostly spare, which works well for creating a spacious sound, even when things get kind of loud. How listeners react to the material will probably depend on how familiar they are with groups like Jefferson Airplane, early Grateful Dead, and even the Velvet Underground. The opening song, "Well-Heeled Man," certainly captures one's attention, and Foster's fragile vocal is evocative. While the effect here and elsewhere is often winning, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the experimental mood of the material. The music ranges from gentle to dissonant, from a hush to a crash, alternately pulling the listener in and pushing the listener away. The listener may be intrigued or overwhelmed by All the Leaves Are Gone, but he or she will never be bored. Ronnie D. Lankford Jr., All Music Guide
These songs embrace their pain. Well really more than that they admit the pain…and tower above it. Foster’s pipes have the warbling ache of a silent movie actress speaking after so many years voiceless. The leaves are gone like Garbo. While Josephine may also be a “Born Hell(rais?)er” her stylized soprano is stirringly at home guiding cautionary folk with scattery treble guitar. I suppose that the Supposed may turn some people off, notably Goodman’s noodling may seem thin and tweaky to some, but I *really* like its chaos clashing into these simple strum-along songs. And the percussion that Rusty Peterson contributes is what gives this album its unbreakable backbone. Evidently this was originally created as a rock musical but the songs stand firmly alone, alone without a lover, alone without forebears (as the poignant “Deathknell” decries), but powerfully alone. by Thurston Hunger on January 29, 2005 at 2:22 am
After a half dozen listens that ranged from puzzled to quizzical to ramped-up to bowled over, I am ready to announce my strong support for & backing of JOSEPHINE FOSTER & THE SUPPOSED. Ms. Foster, you may remember, was the folk chanteuse responsible for the single best song on the Arthur magazine modern folk comp "The Golden Apples of The Sun" last year. “Little Life”, however, only hinted at what a baroque banshee Ms. Foster is – and at how successful she’d quickly become at fusing twisted avant-folk with hard, squealing psychedelic rock. “All The Leaves Are Gone” is really her first record, released late last year; there’s been a solo CD put out in 2005 that I know has garnered additional praise, but that I haven’t yet heard. Before we go any further, we’d probably better have a little chat about Josephine Foster’s voice. Like JOANNA NEWSOM’s, Foster’s lungs take a little bit of patience, but at least she sounds like a w-o-m-a-n, albeit a woman transported from 16th century England tearooms by way of Mary Poppins films. She trills and howls and falsettos like a hippie mystic who’s playing English folksinger – and you know what? It works. She has a singular set of pipes, well suited for both rock & roll and quiet balladry. You may just need to curl up with it a little before passing “go”. Once there, though, the rewards are plenty. Her band The Supposed are excellent folk/psych musicians bent on telekinetically channeling Brian Jones on tracks like the incredible “Well Heeled Men” and “Jailbird”. Some of their “pieces” are longish journeys under & around the howling vortex of Foster’s vocal explorations, yet most keep pace with a relatively basic 3-4 minute rock song length and structure. Anything that might sound grating at first listen is smoothened when you realize just how remarkably inventive & unique this combo is. Playing off a woman like Foster and her weird-ass songs would be a challenge for anyone, but these guys just make it sound like they’re just there to kick out the jams. Don’t make the mistake of lumping this in with the Newsom and Banhart records, records which, while pleasant for many (like me), also drive away well-meaning and informed individuals in droves. Josephine Foster is a big cut above that jazz, and she has quickly become one of the standard-bearers for what modern rock music ought to sound like in 2004-05.
For all the beautiful things that we have in this world, it is sometimes hard to see what is often right in front of our faces. We grow tired of being pulled down on a daily basis. In the face of adversity, we buckle under the strain and are forced to forget, only to realise years later what it is that we?ve forgotten. Josephine Foster has not forgotten. She keeps these things locked up safe and sound in a small rusty tin behind a row of marionettes on the top shelf of the wardrobe where you used to hide as a child. On her most recent musical outing and first with her ?rock?n?roll? group The Supposed, Josephine reaches out and proffers it to us all, daring us to ignore what?s inside. An enchanting mixture of folk-inspired songwriting, eerie lullabies and late sixties West Coast flavoured psychedelia with aesthetically crisp, no-nonsense production values, you?d be foolish to decline. The gentle opening bars of the album?s first song ?Well-Heeled Men? quickly give way to a more stylistically jaunty angle to Foster?s restrained approach to her solo work and as one half of the Chicago-based duo Born Heller, with it?s frolicking bass-lines, careening electric guitar leads and it?s almost military-like snare rolls. Although there are both quiet and louder songs on this recording, it certainly sets the scene. One of the many highlights of ?All The Leaves Are Gone? is the song of the same name, which features one of the most absurdly catchy choruses I?ve heard in recent years. Eastern-tinged slide guitar dances nose-to-nose with self-proclaimed ?opera school dropout? Foster?s potent vocal acrobatics during the closure of this all-too-brief gem. The defeatist subject matter of the lyrics work nicely with the upbeat tone of the music- by the end of the song we are only to glad to give in and resign ourselves to whatever may lay ahead. ?Silly Song? starts off like the ghostly echoes of a painfully sad old 78 record and starts to pick up the pieces, incorporating the full band into it?s wilting old-timey arrangement. In contrast, the next song, ?Jailbird (Hero of the Sorrow)? is a punchy, four-to-the-floor rock song and is one of the most straight-forward songs on an album which elsewhere seems to meld it?s many influences together on every single track. With the off-kilter Appalachian lull of ?Don?t Wait, Mary Jane? and the quirky, swaggering cabaret stomp of the final number ?(You Are Worth) A Million Dollars?, Josephine Foster and The Supposed continue to surprise us right until the very end, prominently displaying Josephine?s unique talents as a performer and an aptitude for crossing the boundaries of almost any given genre and making it undeniably her own. If you?re already a fan of Josephine?s work and are familiar with the gentle American folk songs of her ?Little Life? recording or the self-titled Born Heller CD, you might be thrown off guard momentarily by ?All The Leaves Gone?, but this feeling fades faster than last night?s dreams upon waking. To put it quite simply, this is a superb album and I am proud to say that it is easily one of my favourite records of 2004. After a few listens, I?m certain it will be one of yours too. 9/10 James Blackshaw (25 May, 2005)
A huge area of music territory is covered over the span of All The Leaves Are Gone. From sparse Appalachian Folk to Psychedelic Rock, one variable that never waivers is the convincing confidence - and competence - of Josephine Foster's chilling vocals. Album opener Well-Heeled Men provides a folksy, psychedelic setting with a minimal guitar section, understated percussion with well placed symbols and crashes coated with a thick layer of earthy vocals that further solidify Foster's position among her fellow folkies that are making a huge impression on the independent music scene. As the instrumentation builds towards the end, you are being transitioned into the rising intensity of the remainder of the album. From the title track, which is what I imagine would be the result if Joanna Newsome provided vocals for an Abbey Road-era Beatles track that was conceived by Ringo, to the rambling, dusty highway rock of Deathknell to the psychedelic vibe of Who Will Feel Bitter at the Days End?, just listening to the overall presentation and unique vocal stylings, Josephine Foster could pass for Devendra Banhart's slightly less eccentric little sister... With tracks that could be lost 60s psychedelic rock gems a la Jefferson Airplane or communal folk sing-a-longs, a vintage charm is present regardless of the influences and styles that set the stage for each song.
Josephine Foster - Born Heller (2004) #777Жанр: Indie, Folk, World, Country Страна-производитель диска: USA Год издания диска: 2004 Издатель (лейбл): Locust Music Номер по каталогу: L 51 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 33:30 Источник: what.cd Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 I Want To 2 No More Lamps In The Morning 3 Mountain Song 4 Good Times 5 I Am A Guest In Here 6 Lulu Fellows 7 First Kiss 8 The Left Garden 9 Pansies, Will You Ever Grow? 10 Lullaby No. 5 11 Big Sky No. 4
Josephine Foster - A Diadem (2005) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk Страна-производитель диска: USA Год выпуска диска: 2005 Издатель (лейбл): Love Helmet Music Номер по каталогу: none Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 17:55 Источник: собственный диск Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: да 1 Wondrous Love 2 The Salley Gardens 3 Oh Bright Eyed One 4 Eileen Aroon Второй из двух ЕР Josephine Foster, включающий три обработки народного фольклора и кавер на Clive Palmer (Incredible String Band).
Josephine Foster - Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You (2005) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk, Acid-Folk Страна-производитель диска: USA Год издания диска: 2013 Издатель (лейбл): Locust Music Номер по каталогу: L68 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 43:33 Источник (релизер): what.cd Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 The Siren's Admonition 2 Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You 3 By The Shape Of Your Pearls 4 Stones Throw From Heaven 5 Where There Are Trees 6 The Golden Wooden Tone 7 There Are Eyes Above 8 Celebrant's Song 9 Good News 10 Trees Lay By 11 The Pruner's Pair 12 Crackerjack Fool 13 The Way Is Sweetly Mown 14 Hominy Grits
With her idiosyncratic vocal style and impressive range, Josephine Foster has already established herself as an alternative folk mainstay.
'Hazel Eyes' is an invitation to get lost in the wide-eyed acreage of well-worn American song through the ages – intuitive loner folk, flapper blues, American spiritual roughage and acid folk are sewn into a lovely patchwork by one of America’s most adventurous songstresses. Self-produced in the studio with an array of unusual instruments and eclectic arrangements, 'Hazel Eyes' is a fearless collection of 15 self-penned originals written over a five-year period. Josephine Foster's previous releases topped Best of 2004 lists in Chicago Reader, San Francisco Chronicle, Pitchforkmedia, Dusted, Stylus and Foxy Digitalis.
On Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, Josephine Foster trades the rangy psych-folk of her 2004 album with the Supposed for the lonesome chill of an empty studio. She handles everything on Hazel Eyes, from layering her vibrating saw blade of a voice to accompanying it with kazoo, dulcimer, harp, homemade percussion, and, at the center, her dry and spindly acoustic guitar. Foster's singing often consists of a wordless, moody sigh. But she also fills the corners of her lilting, swaying songs with talk of bones, treasure, and hominy grits. Her antiquated enunciation can be little trying -- she's from Chicago, not Kisimul Castle. But the style works if you let yourself believe that Hazel Eyes is a crazy old 78 you found in an attic. (Its runic, earth mother cover art helps.) Alongside the album's more esoteric material -- including "Pruner's Pair" and the raga-like "Celebrant's Song" -- are pieces with an at least an element of easygoing fun, like the casual, old-timey flair of "Good News," or "Golden Wooden Tone," which with its kazoos, harmonies, and tumbling jacks percussion is downright gleeful. Gleeful like the final song of Puritan girls condemned for witchery, but gleeful nevertheless. For fans of Espers, Joanna Newsom, and Foster's own work in the comparatively less strange Born Heller. Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide
Prior to recording in Born Heller and The Children’s Hour, Josephine Foster dropped out of opera school, and this biographical detail is often bandied about as a means for getting perspective on the spare, willowy folk music that she’s made since. The implications are obvious – classically trained, she knows something about vocal agility and pitch control; a dropout, she’s temperamentally better suited to forms alien to Mozart and Verdi. But from here the assumptions begin to break down, in part because Foster’s music is so different from that of other performers known for bringing formal rigor to vernacular styles. Where Joan Baez, Jean Ritchie, and other vocalists approach their material with a desire to clarify and interpret, Foster resists this impulse. Her prickly, rarefied warble does nearly the opposite of what we expect such voices to do – it embodies folk’s peculiarities rather than polishing them away. Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You is the first solo venture for the Chicagoan, and it comes on the heels of All The Leaves Are Gone, her rollicking collaboration with Brian Goodman and Rusty Peterson. Some faulted that record for an excess of guitar wankery, but Goodman’s zeal is crucial to the decentralized push-and-pull that elevates Foster’s vocal performance. She ditches the rock electricity on Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You while smartly retaining the same keen compositional imbalance and bristling instrumental tension. Accompanying herself with all manner of (literal) bells and whistles, as well as guitar, harp, sitar, tambourine, ukulele, and homemade percussion, Foster slides her voice around tinny irregular plucks, minor key-clawing, trembling flute notes, and wooden clicks and clacks. On gems like the austere deathbed ballad “Stones Throw From Heaven,” she even multi-tracks harmony accompaniment, playing Hazel Dickens to her own Alice Gerrard. There’s a disconcerting stillness to much of Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, a privileging of inertia that succumbs here and there to the swarm of strings, but returns always to a resting state. This is a key difference between Foster and someone like Devendra Banhart, with whom her voice shares a certain affinity. Where Banhart seems perpetually on the hunt for neat melodic figures, locked grooves to adorn with surreal images, Foster resists order. Her voice flickers like pale flame around lyrics you’d expect to find in the Child Ballads ("I fell down among the splinters / Of a rose of the tree / My true lover planted thee"), constantly wandering and rarely returning twice over the same ground. On “Crackerjack Fool” – one of the album’s highlights – Foster borrows lines from a classic lullabye (Hush little baby don’t say a word / Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird) and spins them at a feverish, oblong tilt over dense, dizzying guitar clawing. As she throws her soprano into the croaking call of a crow, the song flaps its black wings and turns evil. Foster’s vocals are graceful and sedate on the track that follows (“The Way is Sweetly Mown”), but she ripples the placid surface with freefalling harp notes and interjections of bells and chimes. Her formal illogic is so strange and convincing that when she sticks to familiar trappings (the bluesy “Good News” and the neat chord changes of “Trees Lay By”), it distances her from her most appealing quality – that unease that’s there in all of the great folk songs, and has been for centuries. By Nathan Hogan
Josephine Foster - A Wolf In Sheep`s Clothing (2006) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk, Acid-Folk Страна-производитель диска: USA Год выпуска диска: 2006 Издатель (лейбл): Locust Music Номер по каталогу: LOCUST 79 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 42:17 Источник: собственный диск Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: есть 1 An Die Musik (Schubert/Schober) 2 Der König In Thule (Schubert/Goethe) 3 Verschwiegene Liebe (Wolf/Eichendorff) 4 Die Schwestern (Brahms/Mörike) 5 Wehmut (Schumann/Eichendorff) 6 Auf Einer Burg (Schumann/Eichendorff) 7 Nähe Des Geliebten (Schubert/Goethe)
For her third solo album, Josephine Foster went for something simple, but extremely strange. Basically, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing consists of renditions of 19th century art songs, with Brian Goodman's acid electric guitar providing the X factor. Foster has selected pages by Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms, which she sings in German, in typical lieder fashion (acute vibrato included), accompanying herself soberly at the acoustic guitar. Upon hearing the first few seconds of "An die Musik," the first track, you cannot help but wonder if you have put the right disc in the CD player -- is this a reissue of some old wax recordings miraculously restored? -- at which point the electric licks kick in and things take an unmistakable contemporary feel. Goodman seems to operate on his own level, weaving acid lines in and out of the songs, often with little relation to them. The contrast is downright shocking at first and remains disquieting for the first four songs. By the fifth track, "Wehmut," Foster changes her approach: an old piano replaces the acoustic guitar, while amateur harmonica and other miscellaneous instruments create something much closer to the free folk aesthetics some listeners are probably expecting from this album. The longest piece by far, "Auf Einer Burg" goes further in that direction, retaining only the ghost of Schumann's original melody, obscured by reverb and drenched in multi-tracked psychedelic guitar improvisations. The dislocation felt in the earlier tracks is dispelled in this case, which, paradoxically, makes this piece the "saner" one of the bunch and also the least effective. "Nähe Des Geliebten" comes back to the arrangements of the first few songs, closing the album on a more positive note. Some fans of Foster will argue that her two previous solo albums hinted at something like this -- Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You had a certain antiquated quality to it -- but nothing can really prepare you for A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. People who make up lists of "weird albums" will most likely take a shine to this one, but don't look at it as a novelty record; it has unique charm and can unexpectedly grow on you. François Couture, All Music Guide
The first lady of America's 'nu-folk' movement and close friend of arch-hippy Devandra Banhart has finally got around to recording a new collection of tracks...and they're all in German! Pardon? I mean, we all agree French sounds great when sung, Italian - the language was made for singing, even Finnish has become quite respectable in the last few months, but German? Calm down...it works a treat and apparently the songs on this album are all lossely based on 19th Century German art songs. Ah - all becomes clear. The compositions are taken from Brahms and Schubert among others, and the lyrics are inspired by writers such as Goethe. I must say that Foster's ambition pays off and 'A Wolf In Sheeps Clothing' manages to retain the beauty of her earlier work while clearly paying tribute to a serious period of European music with an array of beautiful and often unexpected production techniques. So when you think about it, she didn't make such a strange decision after all - so what do you reckon she'll do next? A Norwegian black metal album? Lovely.
When I saw Josephine Foster perform this May in Athens, she seemed for the entire night to wonder why a roomful of people would pay good money to watch her perform some simple songs she had written. She was friendly, genuine, and graceful – all the things one would expect after hearing her music – when some friends and I spoke to her before the show, but she also seemed surprised that strangers would walk up and introduce themselves to her just because they enjoy her work. On stage, she kept her banter to a minimum, and when she did talk, it was to the end of demystifying her music: she introduced "Stone’s Throw from Heaven" as a little tune she put together on the fly during her last stay in Georgia. During the one song she played with accompanists, Foster invited members of the audience to grab any instruments they might have handy and join her and her bandmates on stage; when the two folks who accepted returned to their seats at the song’s end, I got the sense that she wished the wall between observer and performer would remain down for the rest of the night. Foster did not, significantly, play any songs from A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing that evening, despite the fact that it was the album for which she was ostensibly touring. While both cursory and in-depth listens reveal that the album is by no stretch at odds with the singer’s previous recordings, it is the first of Foster’s albums to feel like a closed space, to create its own consistent environment. You could chalk it up to the fact that Wolf was recorded in a church – albums made in sanctuaries (think Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock) are often more anchored to their sites of genesis than others. But Wolf is also a concept-driven project: it’s a collection of seven German lieder, songs for voice and instruments often credited as the modern pop song’s late 19th century ancestors. The American folk stylings and personable lyrics typical of Foster’s previous albums provide multiple points of immediate contact for Joe Concertgoer, whereas a Brahms piece has more potential to alienate or disengage, even when played without the intention of doing so. But I think there’s another reason that Foster may be wary and perhaps even afraid of playing any of Wolf’s songs live: this record makes her sound special. I’ve never heard anyone deny Foster’s talents, but I have seen many reviewers and friends shrug her songs off as second-tier fare. Fair enough, I suppose: if you compare her original material to Devendra Banhart’s or Joanna Newsom’s (and we always end up doing this), Foster’s arrangements sound less full and her lyrics appear less idiosyncratic. In short, she’s had as good a voice but not as unique a Voice as her contemporaries. On this album, though, Foster uses other people’s songs to come into her own as a performer and interpreter, outshining her peers on a number of levels. You could chalk it up to better source material, but then you’d ignore other areas of growth. For starters, Foster’s more economical than ever on this outing. Singing in a lullaby cadence, she stretches notes to their limits, often projecting emotions as varied as bittersweet nostalgia, serenity, melancholy, and deep-seated joy over the course of a single word by relishing each phoneme. Her harp provides appropriately baroque accompaniment, gracefully filling each measure with as much sound as possible. Guest guitarist Brian Goodman might be most responsible for taking Wolf to the next level. He first chimes in at the end of opener "An die Musik," launching into a noodly, clean tone electric outro that adds a trippy, psychedelic aftertaste to a performance that otherwise sounds like it could have happened when the piece was originally written. Goodman’s contributions grow on each successive track, culminating during Schumann’s "Auf einer Burg," a heavily textured, free-form spin cycle of guitar drift that rivals the SYR series’ most disembodied moments in its surrealism. This track should connect some crucial dots for anyone who’s ever wondered why so many listeners of seemingly genteel singers like Foster or Newsom also have an appetite for blistering, chaotic artists like Mouthus and Hair Police. Wolf’s avant-garde wanderings are quite interesting in light of how its songs have been received over the past century. When Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and other middle-class scholars, composers, and society people revived English folk forms in the early 20th century, purging the common man’s consciousness of German lieder was one of their primary goals, as they regarded these songs as fleeting, insubstantial scraps of popular drivel. This revivalist project would establish the milieu from which Fairport Convention, The Incredible String Band, and other acts who mixed pop with traditional British folk would rise a few decades later. And now an American artist who travels in a circuit that is often derided as a mere reprisal of this late ’60s psych-folk scene has made an album full of these once-despised lieder for a general public that will likely regard her recording as inaccessible or even pretentious. Neo-folkies like Foster are often criticized for drawing too heavily from the past, but a look beneath the surface reveals that their albums are sites for rewriting and reevaluating received topographies of pop music history. And A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is the most compelling reinterpretation I’ve heard in some time. by P Funk
"She's utterly unique, beguiling and refreshing; a relief from the relentless, ubiquitous ugliness of our time.- The LA Weekly "Foster represents the quintessence of the new folkies." - Boston Globe "Strange and powerfully affecting." - Mojo "With her idiosyncratic vocal style and impressive range, Josephine Foster has already established herself as analternative folk mainstay." - The Wire "you might call ms. foster's eerie warbling old fashioned, except that it evokes a scrambled past that exists only in her vision: mountain songs that never were, spaced out hybrids that never will be." - the New York Times "she has a truly wonderful voice and extraordinary songs." New Music Express Over the course of just a few years, Josephine Foster has captivated audiences & critics alike through a magnetic patchwork of recordings ranging from broken spirited balladry (Born Heller), fiery psych rock gestalt (All the Leaves Are Gone) to the voice of an outsider folk siren (Hazel Eyes, I will Lead You). The one constant is the utterly overwhelming strength and seductive unease of her voice & the bravery of an iconoclastic spirit. For anyone else, what lies inside her latest offering, A Wolf in Sheep`s Clothing, would be a purely rebellious turn but for Josephine Foster, every record is, itself, a part of a continual movement. And so it goes, A Wolf in Sheep`s Clothing is a deeply absorbing, magical reconstruction of 19th century German art songs that float in a wash of blissed voice and electric guitar in an almost dreamlike fashion through a salon of her own invention. In a music where sacred cows roam the pastures a plenty, Foster pays tribute on her own terms and in the process makes a case for German as one of the previously unknown romance languages.
The operatic voice of Josephine Foster is such a powerful and eccentric instrument that it has often seemed a slightly irregular fit no matter what sub-genre she's tried to pack it into. With her haunted, theatrical delivery, Foster cuts an arresting figure-- whether through the rustic balladry of her duo Born Heller, the snaky acid rock of 2004's All the Leaves Are Gone, or the avant-folk of 2005's Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You. But with her latest solo work, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Foster has found perhaps the most appropriate vehicle yet for her singular and affecting talents-- 19th century German art-songs, wholly reconstructed here via Foster's skeletal arrangements of voice and guitar. Written in a form known as "Kunstlied" or simply "Lieder," the songs on A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing were composed by such Romantic Era greats as Johannes Brahms and Franz Schubert, with lyrics based upon the texts of writers like Johann Goethe or Eduard Mörike. Though poetic by design, it was also not uncommon for Lieder lyrics to feature a brief, fable-like narrative, giving many of these songs the appearance of a traditional ballad or folktale. Needless to say, the dramatic range and construction of these pieces nicely dovetails with Foster's idiosyncratic vocal swoops and warbles, and regardless of any language barriers she sounds perfectly at home in this gothic, Old World environment, as well as with the guttural patterns of German speech. The album opens, aptly enough, with a version of Schubert's "An Die Musik", a short, rapturous ode to music with lyrics by Franz Schober. All is quiet on this track, with Josephine's multi-tracked vocals harmonizing over acoustic guitar, until suddenly guitarist Brian Goodman (of Foster's psych-rock group the Supposed) rips into a knobby and splintered electric solo that seems transmitted from another century entirely. And though some listeners might find Goodman's forceful presence on this and other tracks to be intrusive, his work provides a crucial streak of impulsive expression that keeps the album from seeming an overly reverent exercise in front-parlor nostalgia. This sense of spontaneous creation is maintained on the following "Der König in Thule", which spirals into a glorious eddy of a cappella overdubbed vocals. On "Die Schewestern", a Brahms composition that relates a tale of romantic jealousy between two sisters, Foster's vocal is effectively dual-channeled to better approximate the song's twin narrators, while on Schumann's "Wehmut" she sounds as distantly lonesome as the lyrics' yearning nightingale. A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing reaches its experimental apex on Foster's epic-length treatment of "Auf einer Burg", a Schumann piece whose lyrics portray a rather turgid storyline complete with a decayed castle and weeping bride. Here her voice takes on a dissolute, glassy luster while ghostly shreds of guitar and feedback crumble into the shadows. The creepy, unsettling theater of this performance is further enhanced by an immediate segue into the album-closing "Näne des Geliebten", a lovely slice of sunlit folk that breezily recalls the traditional work of Shirley Collins. On these pieces and throughout the album, Foster displays her unique ability to fully inhabit the space of a song- no matter how outlandish or anachronistic its details may seem. In so doing she is able to recast these ageless works in her own solitary image, an image that seems more acutely defined the further backwards she casts her gaze. Matthew Murphy, April 12, 2006
Elegiac and understated, the opening notes of �An Die Musik� mark a journey back to nineteenth century German folk balladry. Fosters birdlike vocal lines hang exposed and fragile, lightly shaded by sinewy weaves of multi-tracked trumpet, and the odd spell of pastoral flute and rippling percussion. For all that, this piece, as all others in this collection, gradually takes flight of this minimal backing, and traipses through lithe, supple rhythm sections, droning metal hoe-downs, and barbed tonalities. Foster is careful not to treat these German art songs are mere artifacts, though. At the same time, as is most clearly illustrated through Brian Goodman�s murky, dive-bombing guitar chords, rather than simply displaying these songs, there is a desire to transfigure them, but to transfigure them by grasping what is essential to each respectively. As such, although connected by a certain undertow of archaic elegance, each piece has its own disguises, ploys, and struggles. Works such as �Verschwiegene Liebe� and �Wehmut� slowly wake from waltzing piano lines and finger picked guitar to bass clarinet burrs and murmurs, and the bleary noise of a guitar. It is a movement which exhibits the groups ability to deftly incorporate a variety of dialects in such a way that the arrangement seems both eclectic, and yet necessary. Even when moments pick up steam, and grow more raw and resounding, as on the eleven minute �Auf Einer Burg�, when patches of howling guitar, low-pitched drums, and mercurial splashes of soprano sax augment the shimmering chimes and woody guitar line, the underlying shape is never blurred or altogether disfigured, but remains sharp, and caught from a number of different angles. The elastic voice of Foster mirrors this progression, too, shifting from operatic wails, to sudden hiccups, and deep bellows. In so doing, Foster and company do not so much spawn a garish melange of styles as they disclose the depths of these charming songs by revealing how they call for interpretation still. Max Schaefer
Partially funded by a grant from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council, Josephine Foster’s latest offering, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, or Ein Wolf im Schafspeiz, is a collection of reinterpreted German art songs, or lieder. It highlights the lied (the singular of lieder) of Romantic-era composers Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, and Wolf arranged by Foster and sung entirely in German. The lieder were originally composed for a single voice and piano and seem a natural choice for Foster, who does a magnificent job of customizing these songs with lyrics based upon the works of writers such as Goethe and Eichendorff. Despite a self-deprecating attitude toward her operatic skill (she is an opera school dropout), Foster’s talents as a singer — to the untrained ear, perhaps — are remarkable and her specific otherworldly quality is well showcased in this musical medium. Her spookily apocalyptic version of Schumann’s “Auf einer Burg” is fantastic and she clearly enjoys herself on the album’s final track, Schubert’s “Nahe des Geliebten.” One unfortunate disclaimer on A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is Brian Goodman’s guitar work. While serving its purpose in jettisoning the music to the electric present, its introduction on the opener “An Die Musik” is actually jarring and from then on, meddlesome. The neo-folk movement is nothing if not cerebral and represents an appealing alternative to other camps of independent music that seem determined to kick at the punk-rock corpse. A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing proves that there is still so much more music out there to discover — Schubert alone wrote 610 lied. By Anne Johnson
Josephine Foster & The Cherry Blossoms - Josephine Foster & The Cherry Blossoms (2007) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk, Psych-Rock Страна-производитель диска: USA Год выпуска диска: 2007 Издатель (лейбл): Not On Label Номер по каталогу: none Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 53:02 Источник (релизер): what.cd (wikieup) Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Shimey Chuck Down 2 Shaker Tune 3 These Were Our Woods 4 Deepest Woods 5 Way Up The Neck 6 Tahitian Lullabye 7 Old Girl 8 Surf Prelude 9 Center In The Center Of It 10 In The Alleyways 11 Can We Trust The Waters 12 Down The River To Hell 13 Anytime You Go Back Home / Better World
1 Shimey Chuck Down - Written-By Cherry Blossoms, The 2 Shaker Tune - Written-By Josephine Foster 3 These Were Our Woods - Written-By John Allingham 4 Deepest Woods - Music By John Allingham and Peggy Snow, Lyrics By - Peggy Snow 5 Way Up The Neck - Written-By Cherry Blossoms, The 6 Tahitian Lullabye - Written-By Cherry Blossoms, The 7 Old Girl - Written-By Cherry Blossoms, The 8 Surf Prelude - Written-By John Allingham 9 Center In The Center Of It - Written-By Josephine Foster 10 In The Alleyways - Written-By Peggy Snow 11 Can We Trust The Waters - Written-By - Josephine Foster and Peggy Snow, Lyrics By - Peggy Snow 12 Down The River To Hell 2:20 13 Anytime You Go Back Home / Better World 2:45 Lyrics By - Peggy Snow Written-By, Lyrics By - Josephine Foster Performer - Allen Lowrey , Chris Davis (7) , Chuck Hatcher , Corey Shea , Dave Maddox , John Allingham , Josephine Foster , Peggy Snow Producer, Recorded By - Chuck Hatcher
Josephine Foster - This Coming Gladness (2008) #777Жанр: Indie, Freak-Folk, Psych-Folk Страна-производитель диска: USA Год издания диска: 2008 Издатель (лейбл): Bo'Weavil Recordings Номер по каталогу: WEAVIL31CD Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 45:23 Источник: собственный диск Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: есть 1 The Garden Of Earthly Delights 2 The Lap Of Your Lust 3 Lullaby To All 4 I Love You & The Springtime Blues 5 All I Wanted Was The Moon 6 Waltz Of Green 7 Sim Não 8 Second Sight 9 A Thimbleful Of Milk 10 Indelible Rainbows Victor Herrero, lead guitar Alex Nielson, drums Josephine Foster, vocals - guitar - harp - piano Recorded and mixed by Paco Loco in Cádiz (Spain) January 2008 Mastered by Pete Norman Produced by Josephine Foster Cover paintings by Josephine Foster
One of the finest artists to have emerged from the so-called freak-folk boom of a few years back, Josephine Foster continues to write beautiful songs, and doesn't sound remotely like an artist tied to a particular fad. Regardless of its context, Foster's voice always sounds as if it's emerging from some dusty, wartime 78pm vinyl, with an outgoing, operatic tone probably best described as 'witchy'. Foster has tried out various styles of arrangement of her peculiar song craft over the years, and set into a trio format (with drums supplied by the always excellent Alex Nielson and lead guitar from Victor Herrero) this album probably draws comparison's with the more fleshed out sounds of her A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing album or the Born Heller material. There's nothing that could be branded as especially folksy about this music though, in fact it probably more closely resembles a kind of song-based free jazz at times: on the woozy piano psychedelics of 'Lullaby To All' she sounds like a 1940s Kate Bush, as a rampaging, atonal solo scrawls mercilessly across the song from Herrero's guitar. His inky lead playing leaves its mark on much of the album, and it's particularly effective on the more atmospherically charged moments, such as 'Indelible Rainbows', which is swamped in glistening echo. Despite its ventures into dissonance and the more exploratory dynamics of free jazz, this latest body of song from Foster finds her at the peak of her songwriting form, and she actually seems all the more effective for having other musicians to clash against. Very highly recommended.
David Keenan should take it back. He’s the writer for The Wire who will forever be held culpable for an ultimate gaffe – coining the term “New Weird America” (NWA). I suggest a DeLorean outfitted with a plutonium-powered flux capacitor; the creation of that term is an event in American periodical history worth erasing. Much like how the bands back in the early ’90s were sloppily grouped under the marketing label “Alternative,” there’s not much in common between the music of Joanna Newsom and Animal Collective, two supposed vanguards of NWA, who are often inter-lumped anyway. Indeed, I believe a more misapplied genre trope has yet to be perpetrated on the American folk underground; it’s even more egregiously inappropriate than freak-folk. Trying to explain the appeal of one artist by comparing them to disparate contemporaries often works more as a slight than an effective promotion. Unless you can show me otherwise, I will forever find it hard to believe that there is interview text where any artist professes to be a member of NWA. Using catchy terms to describe bands is behavior more typical of promoters and press. It seems Josephine Foster hasn’t gotten so much of that attention. Her operatic voice and ridiculously eerie compositions have certainly made some writers make the critical leap into categorizing her as part of NWA, but others were too distracted by her music itself to bother making immaterial correlations. There’s so much substance in her music that it stands alone on a paisley street corner, waiting for the bus in an outfit that begs another trip ’round the block. To her credit, Jo Foster is making something New and Weird in America. Her last album, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, was a conceptual masterpiece and one of the most beautiful musical statements of 2006. An album comprised of her original renditions of 19th century German art-songs, her execution of an undoubtedly challenging endeavor was so well done that, were it not absolutely lunar-sounding and somewhat unsettling, your local classical station might have picked it up. The preceding LP, Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, was as regal in its inscrutable delivery. Conceived as a children’s album, it would likely have the most appeal to the wide-eyed and poorly disciplined progeny of feral-foraging forest nymphs, not those young ones reared on the innocuous blather of kid’s rock luminaries like Raffi. It might be a wonderful coincidence that the opening track of her newest album is named “Garden of Earthly Delights.” Determining which incidence of the phrase is being referenced may be fruitless. One could look to the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, the fantastic splendor of which evokes the same rare and medieval quality that is embodied in Josephine Foster’s voice. Or maybe you might know of the seemingly rare and wonderful double LP compilation entitled Garden of Earthly Delights, which was released almost four decades ago and featured an amazing assortment of the ’60s’ most vivid and remarkable gems. The phrase evokes the exact density and lusciousness that is flowing and growing from Jo Foster’s newest album. Accompaniment by drums and an often atonal guitar make this album seem more from the realm of jazz than her two previous solo works. The songs often caterwaul into spheres of transcendental interpretation, belying any listener’s attempts to rationally follow the singer’s intent. It’s not art for art’s sake, but it seems to be an apropos vehicle for music that lacks pretension while exhibiting an awareness of its own genuine worth. Foster routinely accomplishes the amazing feat of making challenging and quasi-inaccessible music charming and beautiful. The picture of Foster in the insert, standing regally, clad in red corduroys, and wearing a knightly breastplate (complete with overstated pectoral muscles and gold accent), shows that either she’s got a wild sense of humor or she is totally out there, somewhere, in a bizarre world of medieval anti-fashion. The painting on the cover, done by Foster, has a dose of whimsy and evokes madness in such a fashion that studying the cover art itself might serve as a preface for the soprano’s creepy aural tremor. In “All I Wanted Was the Moon,” Foster sings “All I wanted was the moon/ But I left the earth too soon/ In a ship that had no room/ For my love to come, my groom.” Perhaps she feels alone in her journey, as if no one is willing to accompany her on a mad jaunt around the solar system. For those willing to say yes, onward is the word of the day. Foster leads us into a sparsely populated world of operatic voices rebelling against genre norms that are inventing unprecedented venues of musical exploration. Here is an artist who is clearly able to mix an extraordinary range of talent with a penchant for experimentation in a manner that resists easy comparison. This singularity instantly vaults her work’s status from beyond membership in some ill-conceived/non-existent musical movement. That’s a piece of bread worth toasting. by Chizzly St. Claw
Josephine Foster's follow-up to the delightfully antiquated A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing comes back to the kind of folk she established on Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You… and to the English language. This Coming Gladness is her best effort to date and deserves top grades in every aspect: songwriting, production, and that voice, so uncannily like Joan Baez, and yet so unlike her. Foster plays a little harp this time, along with acoustic guitar and piano. She is accompanied by drummer Alex Nielson and guitarist Victor Herrero, whose acidic, occasionally atonal leads provide a factor of contemporaneity and disturbance. Songs like "Second Sight," "Lullaby to All," and the exquisite "Garden of Earthly Delights" have a winning timeless quality. This album also highlights the parallel existing between Foster and Joanna Newsom. They both approach folk songwriting from an askew, almost outsider angle, thriving for a form of beauty both naive (almost childlike in Newsom's case) and extremely sophisticated. However, bearing in mind both singers are roughly the same age, if Newsom's voice is that of a little girl, Foster's projects the image of an elderly, experienced woman (or a singer from the first half of the last century). Foster is learning to control and pace the idiosyncrasies of her voice, turning it into a weapon of mass seduction. Yet, her arrangements are so deceptive (archaic yet off-kilter) that this album could never cross over to the mainstream. As far as the underground or alternative circuit is concerned, This Coming Gladness is the best folk songstress album to come out since Joanna Newsom's Ys. François Couture, All Music Guide
Over the course of two solo albums and other releases in various guises (not to mention several home-pressed CD-Rs), Josephine Foster has catapulted herself straight to the frontline of New Weird America. And while many of her contemporaries have faded away into nothingness since, Foster remains at the top of her game. In keeping with her chameleonic musicality, This Coming Gladness is starkly different to 2006’s A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, an audacious (and successful) attempt to tear apart German Romanticism and reinvent the concept of classical music as an art form – here, Foster focuses more on her distinctive, free-spirited voice and how it sits within her blues- and jazz-inspired arrangements. It also sees her once again embrace the electric guitar, complete with all its invigorating distortions, an instrument from which many others in her genre have shied away. A clear religious theme surrounds the reliably entrancing opener ‘The Garden Of Earthly Delights’. As a quiet acoustic guitar rhythm unfurls, Foster’s voice drops in and twists the atmosphere into something weird and wonderful almost in an instant, her closely mic’d microtonal approach giving the song an unsettling tone. The slightly melancholic yet eerie theme is continued in ‘The Lap Of Your Lust’, an exemplary piece to illustrate Foster’s eccentric and experimentalist tendencies. While the instrumentation is fairly basic – just acoustic and electric guitar and drums – and the arrangement definite, providing a stable rhythm, she seems restless and disconcerted, never quite deciding on any one note. Her wayward fancies are also evident in the ambitious piano-driven ‘Lullaby To All’; if she holds back initially with just her voice over a dissonant piano rhythm, the composition eventually erupts into a nightmarish vision of a bedtime singalong, climaxing in a haphazard discordant haze of electric guitar, drums and piano, almost like a rowdy music lesson where everyone just plays whatever they feel like. Foster’s vocals sit on top of this, somewhat aloof, never feeling like a part of the music. Perhaps there is a distinctive direction underneath the sound of the song collapsing in on itself, but that’s for her to know and for us to anguish over. Foster shines brightest on the softer compositions, such as ’I Love You & The Springtime Blues’ and ‘All I Wanted Was The Moon’. Here, among the bare bones of Alex Nielson’s hushed percussion and Victor Herrero’s pioneering electric guitar playing, her voice is quiet and controlled and confidently ensconced within the structure of the songs. Perhaps showing Josephine at her most approachable, the sprightly harmonica on ‘All I Wanted Was The Moon’ provides unexpected additional warmth. While some songs are clearly folk-inspired (most obviously the harp-addled ‘Waltz Of Green’), songs like ‘Second Sight’ and ‘Indelible Rainbows’ venture into more daring spheres. Neither has any semblance of a structure or rhythm per se, rather that the instruments simply evolve and flourish around the singer. A lesser singer might end up confounded by such an approach but Foster takes it all in her stride. And who would have doubted it? Such a unique voice will always take precedence whatever the arrangement or instrumentation. Acting as a buffer between the two is the gorgeously simple ‘A Thimbleful Of Milk’. With just her diaphanous trill and an acoustic guitar to hand Foster brings the song alive with such amazing clarity you’ll be riveted to wherever you are perched for all of its three and a half minute duration. This Coming Gladness is yet another remarkable triumph for Josephine Foster, proving once again that she’s not just a freak-folk mascot. Devendra Banhart and the like would kill to be as fearlessly inventive even once. Want to guess what she’ll do next? No, I thought not. Anja McCloskey
This is Colorado-based Josephine Foster's (Born Heller, The Supposed) debut release for Bo Weavil Recordings, and her third full-length album. This Coming Gladness is transcendental fin de siecle songs from one of the great unsung voices and songwriters of our modern times. Josephine Foster unites rarely united royal realms: self-penned operatic art songs cast in freely-rendered blues with electric guitars and drums beating the path along with harp and piano flourishes. She has a voice that was trained for opera, but creaks like ancient mountain folk floating out from a dusty Victrola. She surpasses any "weird-folk" labeling through the sheer timelessness of her songcraft -- making baroque balladry sound new yet remembered from some not-too distant shared American past. Joining her on this recording is electric guitarist Victor Herrero and drummer Alex Nielson.
Son intrincados los caprichos del destino en el submundo indie, mientras el mercado acoge alegremente a decenas de cantautoras de voz y composiciones un tanto genéricas y efectistas, This Coming Gladness ha pasado desgraciadamente sin pena ni gloria por la blogosfera y redes sociales y ni siquiera ha conseguido una mención en algunos de los medios musicales más importantes. Hechos, cuanto menos, sorprendentes, máxime cuando Josephine ha conseguido con este disco el que posiblemente sea su trabajo más certero hasta la fecha, desmarcándose de toda corriente y de todos, abriendo distancia y camino. Después de editar dos de las piedras de toque folk de los últimos años Hazel Eyes, I will lead you y Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, éste ultimo basado en poemas románticos alemanes, Foster da otra vuelta de tuerca a su personal discurso de folk sin corsé. El material que se extrae de su interior es un conjunto que suena navegando entre dos aguas, mezclando la característica voz limpia y libre-conductora de dejes pre-operísticos de Josephine con el magnífico trabajo, no siempre harmonioso, que hace Víctor Herrero a la guitarra, que consigue sonar nítida, translúcida y encriptada con el juego que le extrae al reverb y a las tonalidades escuela no-guitarrista que suelta. El nexo que acaba de solidificar la mezcla es el impecable y sigiloso drumwork, obra del siempre certero Alex Neilson (Jandek,Six Organs of Admittance, Richard Youngs etc.). Una mezcla que suena arrebatadora, capaz de dejar tras de sí un ambiente aislacionista e hipnótico que contiene desde cantos ensoñadores como “All I wanted was the moon” pasando por el tono confesionario de “The lap of your lust” hasta el romanticismo de “Waltz of green” reforzado por su arpa que acaba interrelacionándose de forma clarividente con un ritmo cadencioso heredero del Kraut y los slow-riffs de Herrero. La pieza que cierra el disco, “Indelible rainbows” dota un matiz más abierto y luminoso a su música, que se acerca a una Velvet rural. Éste es, en definitiva, el disco que debería llevar a su autora a un imaginario panteón con otros excéntricos y desatados prodigios de la naturaleza como Brigitte Fontaine, Carla Bozulich, Nico o Karen Dalton. Su lugar está allí, y lo mejor de todo es que no se le adivina techo compositivo. El fuego arde en este disco. Publicado por Víctor Ginesta
Where is it from, the eldritch warble emanating from the throat of this sunken-cheeked mountain woman? What are her references? Was she bricked up in a turret for her formative years with nowt but a biscuit tin and a rattle, stunned by the sight of the moon and mesmerised by the rustlings in the undergrowth below? I played my mate Jon a track from this album last year. Jon likes Marillion. He emitted a tortured screlch and jammed his fingers in his ears and rocked back and forth until the song ended. Then I played him another one. "As an adolescent she worked as a funeral and wedding singer," a well-known know-all site informs us of Ms Foster. We are not told if she had different repertoires for these different occasions. I like to think not. Her unfettered deep-lung ullulations must have proved a blissfully 'other' soundtrack amid the smoked salmon and sugared almonds. She's been ploughing a deep, fascinating furrow since one of her tracks popped up on some Devendra Barnyard compilation or other a few years ago. But on "This Coming Gladness" she's really voyaged above and beyond the freaky-folky-rinky-dink constraints of her various patchouli-swathed ninny contemporaries, going spectacularly 'furthur', yes, where no-one has gone before. Houston, we have a goblin - she's six foot tall and is wibbling lullabies about Jesus being a cypher. The small band of fellow musicians playing behind her seem as excitingly unhurried and gloriously meandersome as she is, and as unconstrained by anything approaching traditional song structure. Lyrics break down. There are long, wordless vowel sounds rising through soft, tapered guitar lines like tendrils of smoke wending their way up through a trellis. Lines melt like ice cream and float around in gravity-free globules. The drums are there not to keep the beat, but to keep the beat away. This is music as immersion. In some kind of fungal alpine custard. Reviewed by Nitrous_McBread
A l’écart des autoroutes balisées, Josephine Foster poursuit son ascension irréductible des cimes folk et s’impose, disque après disque, comme une des voix les plus désinvoltes et respectables apparues ces dernières années. Nul doute que le folk, au fond jamais vraiment tombé en désuétude, connaît depuis une dizaine d’années un regain d’intérêt et n’en finit plus, chaque mois, voire semaine, de voir éclore de nouveaux talents prometteurs. Du moins le dit-on ici et là. Car, à y regarder de plus près, les musiciens vraiment dignes d’intérêt se comptent plutôt sur les doigts d’une seule main. Pour nombre de bons élèves rendant une copie sentant la naphtaline combien d’empêcheurs de tourner en rond peu soucieux de générer le concensus ? Pour, au hasard, une Alela Diane honnête mais un brin appliquée et convenue combien de poil à gratter du calibre de Josephine Foster ? Au plus près du folk, genre auquel on affilie désormais à peu près tout et n’importe quoi, mais aussi en débordant le champ familier de ses attributs sonores, l’Américaine, aujourd’hui complètement émancipée de la bande hippie à Devendra Banhart, bâtit loin de la tourmente médiatique une œuvre parmi les plus singulières qui soit. Une farouche indépendance artistique qui fait d’elle une digne héritière d’icônes mésestimées et autrefois invendables comme Judee Sill ou Karen Dalton. On avait ainsi laissé Josephine Foster, il y a deux ans, avec un envoûtant et décalé A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing empreint de poésie lyrique allemande, la voici qui nous revient à présent avec un recueil de dix chansons originales et erratiques, enregistrées à Cádiz, en Espagne. Nonobstant cette délocalisation géographique, l’auditeur cherchera en vain une couleur flamenca marquée ou des tonalités latines récurrentes : le quatrième album de Josephine Foster, This Coming Gladness, respire par tous ses pores le folk originel (bien que l’intéressée décrive sa musique comme du « transcendental art-rock »), jusque dans ses accents austères volontiers baroques ou ses références discrètes à l’americana. Des morceaux comme “All I Wanted Was The Moon” et “Indelible Rainbows” laissent même deviner un horizon country affleurant. C’est dire si l’œuvre de Josephine Foster, malgré ses chiches moyens, ambitionne de couvrir un large éventail de musiques. Des racines musicales qui sont en fait moins actualisées, ou réinventées, que revisitées sur un mode proprement anachronique. Domine en effet depuis le premier album All The Leaves Are Gone (2004) le sentiment d’un recul salutaire, comme une manière de retrait, une façon d’être là sans y être, d’enregistrer des traces sonores, de dessiner avec patience des empreintes musicales, hors du temps. Ni nostalgie ou goût pour l’archaïsme dans la démarche de Josephine Foster : juste une façon très moderne s’il en est d’investir une temporalité qui n’est pas la sienne, un autre temps abordé avec distance et dont demeure seulement l’aura prégnante. Contrairement à la plupart de ses consœurs et confrères folkeux, la musicienne ne convoque pas le passé choyé (la fin des années 1960, début 1970) pour en reproduire les principaux motifs, mais semble porter le deuil d’un temps perdu. Au culte pontifiant se substitue une musique de l’absence, une musique des absents, parfaitement rendue sur This Coming Gladness par les effets de réverbération et d’échos mourants, la présence de la guitare électrique brumeuse ou atonale de Victor Herrero, les balais caressant d’Alex Nielson ou la harpe cristalline et le piano famélique de Foster. Une temporalité biaisée ou fuyante perceptible jusqu’à cet hypothétique autoportrait figurant sur la couverture du disque, peint par la musicienne et peu ressemblant, comme si ce second degré manifeste signifiait déjà un impossible raccord temporel. Parcimonie instrumentale, ascétisme mélodique, raffinement mystique de la langue et, surtout, prépondérance d’un chant clair, hors norme — insupportable pour les uns, sublime pour les autres — qui tutoie les cieux : sans doute les chansons de Josephine Foster participent-elles d’une forme de sacré (que l’on ne saurait confondre avec le religieux, bien que les textes y renvoient souvent). Indéniablement, la haute aspiration qui le gouverne, la solennité harmonique qui s’en dégage, l’absence d’introspection nombriliste et l’humanisme triomphant situent This Coming Gladness du côté des œuvres spirituelles et somme toute universelles. L’épure se joue de tout superflu, la croyance en la musique transcende toute mise en avant narcissique. L’émotion et la beauté, partout présents et pourtant lointains, à l’instar de ces progressions tout en douceur rentrée qui laissent par moment éclater quelques stridences électriques dissonantes, peuvent dès lors se répandre et finissent de rendre ô combien indispensable ce splendide album. Fabrice Fuentes
Dall’alto del suo scranno, lassù all’ottavo circuito della consapevolezza, Timothy Leary sarebbe contento di sapere che, una volta tanto, le sue parole sono state colte alla lettera e tradotte nell’idioma universale dell’arte. E noi tutti dovremmo ringraziare unanimi il corpo docente per aver, bene o male, aiutato la nostra, autodefinitasi una “opera-school dropout”, a scoprire la sua natura più autentica e a trovare la propria strada: vagabondando nel dharma come una delle capofila del movimento New Weird America (con Marissa Nadler, Jana Hunter e gli Espers, fra gli altri) e pubblicando tre album (“All The Leaves Are Gone”, accreditato a Josephine Foster And The Supposed, “Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You” e “A Wolf In Sheep Clothing”). La musica di Josephine Foster ha un che di occulto e trasumanante, di austero e carezzevole, è una vasca di deprivazione sensoriale, un’esperienza extra-corporea per interposta persona. Il suo approccio al folk psichedelico è ubiquo, caleidoscopico, minimalista, insieme semplice e intricato come il disegno d’un origami. La voce prima di tutto: una farfalla ancora avvinta negli ultimi filamenti del bozzolo che si libra in un volo soffice e tormentato, pieno di vortici e vuoti d’aria, una trama esoterica che si sgrana assorbendo nel suo periplo tutto ciò che incontra senza tuttavia tradire la forma originaria. La sua tecnica chitarristica e compositiva sembra lo strascico che scende dal vestito di una sposa fantasma e a cui le canzoni rimangono impigliate, serpeggiando qua e là in preda a uno strano potere mesmerico. Rivisitando lieder e arie classiche con arrangiamenti e strumentazioni mutuati, di volta in volta, dal jazz delle origini, dal blues acustico, dall’acid-folk o dal cerimoniale degli indiani americani, con l’ultimo “This Coming Gladness”, la Foster sembra più che mai prossima al compimento di una sua personalissima forma di “art rock trascendentale”. Apre la suggestiva “The Garden Of Earthly Delight”: una specie di “acchiappasogni” congegnato sull’ordito del picking appalachiano e sugli spasmi indeterministi del sottofondo e in grado di liberare fra le sue maglie tutta la singolare malia di un sottovoce operistico. Su una ritmica jazzata sì e no percettibile “The Lap Of Your Lust” spilla con parsimonia effetti wah e twang psichedelici, mentre il cantato traccia un arcobaleno melodico fra melisma, mantra e salmodia. “Lullaby To All” e “I Love You And The Springtime Blues” balenano disarticolati orizzonti blues: la prima, col piano percussivo, i controtempi della batteria e i queruli intarsi della chitarra elettrica, la seconda, inclinando i flessuosi gorgheggi nel singhiozzo dello shout, fra slide da cerimonia zen, tamburi e rullanti propiziatori. Con “All I Wanted Was The Moon” gli stilemi dell’ alt-country vengono rarefatti e trasognati, come un'alba colta un istante prima di addormentarsi, in una qualche sorta di elegia tzigana. “Waltz Of Green” arpeggia un vertiginoso sirtaki celtico, mentre “Sim Nao” alligna fra arabeschi raga-rock (chitarre) e jazz latino (sezione ritmica). In “Second Sight” il fantasma di una gentildonna condannata a rivivere tutte le notti l’incubo della propria morte ulula una ballata normanna trafitta da rasoiate di feedback che sembrano fulmini abbacinanti congelati per pochi istanti nella grigia teca del cielo in tempesta. “Indelible Rainbows” è una parlour ballad vittoriana arrangiata come un raga-folk acustico dei Velvet Underground (saranno i sonagli in sottofondo o i sordi colpi di cassa che rimandano un po’ a “All Tomorrow’s Parties”). Josephine ha ragione: la felicità è a portata di mano. E fintanto che questo disco pernotterà nel vostro lettore, condividerla sarà un piacere. Simone Coacci
Josephine Foster - Graphic As A Star (2009) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk Страна-производитель диска: UK Год выпуска диска: 2009 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: FIRECD136 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 44:07 Источник: собственный диск Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: есть 1 Trust In The Unexpected 2 How Happy Is The Little Stone 3 She Sweeps With Many-Colored Brooms 4 Ah, Teneriffe! 5 Who Is The East? 6 They Called Me To The Window 7 This Is The Land The Sunset Washes 8 Like Mighty Foot Lights Burned The Red 9 Exultation Is The Going 10 In Falling Timbers Buried 11 With Thee In The Desert 12 I See Thee Better In The Dark 13 Your Thoughts Don't Have Words Every Day 14 My Life Had Stood A Loaded Gun 15 Eden Is That Old-Fashioned House 16 Beauty Crowds Me Till I Die 17 I Could Bring You Jewels Had I A Mind To 18 Wild Nights - Wild Nights! 19 Only A Shrine, But Mine 20 Tho' My Destiny Be Fustian 21 What Shall I Do It Whimpers So 22 Heart! We Will Forget Him! 23 Strong Draughts Of Their Refreshing Minds 24 Tell As A Marksman Were Forgotten 25 The Spider Holds A Silver Ball 26 Whoever Disenchants Poetry by Emily Dickenson
Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band - Anda Jaleo (2010) #777Жанр: Freak-Folk Страна-производитель диска: UK Год выпуска диска: 2010 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: FIRECD150 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 39:44 Источник: собственный диск (Promo) Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: есть 1 Los Cuatro Muleros 2 Los Pelegrinitos 3 Las Morillas De Jaén 4 Anda Jaleo 5 Las Tres Hojas 6 Los Mozos De Monleón 7 Sevillanas Del Siglo XVIII 8 Los Reyes De La Baraja 9 El Café De Chinitas 10 Zorongo 11 Nana De Sevilla
Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band - Perlas (2011) #777Жанр: Folk Страна-производитель диска: UK Год выпуска диска: 2011 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: FIRECD253 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 38:56 Источник (релизер): what.cd (evensteven) Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Puerto De Santa Maria 2 Sangre Colorada 3 Cuando Vienes Del Monto 4 Cuatro Pinos 5 Peregrino 6 Dame Esa Flor 7 En Esta Larga Ausencia 8 Abenámar 9 Perlas 10 Brillante Estrella
*** Josephine Foster’s voice, a gravity-defying instrument at the best of times, has been pressed into all kinds of service over the past decade, since she first broke cover with the soured folk-rock of All The Leaves Have Gone: children’s music, Tin Pan Alley, settings of Emily Dickinson poems, German lieder. Her recent turn to Spanish folk music has much to do with her personal life (her partner is Victor Herrero, and she has relocated to Spain from America), but there is also something in these songs that suits her singing, a natural poise that Foster can wrap her idiosyncratic pipes around, equal parts sadness, grace and play. Perlas is the second set of Spanish folk songs Foster has recorded with her partner’s band, after 2010’s Anda Jaleo. Where its predecessor drew from the songs of Federico Garcia Lorca’s banned folk song collection Canciones Populares Españoles (perhaps best known from the stunning performances by Flamenco dancer La Argentinita on the 1931 album on HMV), here Foster casts a wider net. And though Perlas was recorded down south, in Puerto de Santa Maria (the Port of Saint Mary) in Andalusia, the songs primarily draw from the folk traditions of the northern autonomous communities of Spain. These kinds of albums often risk wooden, overly reverent performances, but Foster and her crew play with great ease and charm, the live and analog recording burnishing the set with open-air warmth, and the players connecting with the intuitive spark of natural improvisers, but in service to 10 beautiful folk songs. Things excel when the group stretch their limbs and take their time, as on the opening “Puerto De Santa Maria” and the penultimate title track, where strings tangle with the knotted and chipped varnish of flamenco, and Herrero and Foster trade lines and verses, before his blunt drawl of a voice sets a bed for Foster to hold the language tightly in her maw. Other songs hold subtler surprises, like the Dylan-esque harmonica that jets through the splashing cymbals and rickety percussion of “Cuando Vienes Del Monto,” or the driftwood melancholy of “Dame Esa Flor,” or the darkened twists and turns of “En Esta Larga Ausencia,” inhabited as it is by the spirit of the duende. Perlas is a lovely, understated album, sure in its stride but happy to wander, and somehow peaceable and playful, even as the songs hymn broken hearts.
Josephine Foster - Blood Rushing (2012) #777Жанр: Psysh-Folk, Psych-Rock Страна-производитель диска: UK Год выпуска диска: 2012 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: none Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 34:59 Источник: собственный диск (Promo) Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Waterfall 2 Panorama Wide 3 Sacred Is The Star 4 Child Of God 5 Blood Rushing 6 The Wave Of Love 7 O Stars 8 Geyser 9 Underwater Daughter 10 Words Come Loose
The story of Josephine Foster's musical development is one of self-discovery and remarkable tenacity. Midway through her classical training as an opera singer, the Colorado born musician found her voice sitting uneasily between that of a soprano and a mezzo-soprano, an idiosyncrasy that typecast her into a small set of potential roles for the remainder of her career. Instead of resigning herself to this operatic cul-de-sac, Foster forewent the completion of her training, moving to Chicago in 2000 in the hope of indulging her musical passion outside of the restrictive confines of the classical tradition. Foster's latest album Blood Rushing appears to represent something of a monumental juncture in her output. The album should perhaps be viewed as a completion of Foster's tireless creative explorations of the last twelve years: the drawing together of disparate musical threads into a unified artistic identity. Where Foster has had a tendency in the past to hide herself behind overt gimmickry and artifice (for example, 2006's A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing saw songs by 19th century romantic composers set to pummelling waves of guitar noise), Blood Rushing is instilled with the swagger and unpretentious sincerity of an artist with the confidence simply to play it straight. A tangle of fingerpicked acoustic guitars, off-kilter violins and rudimentary drums, this album is a set of joyously ramshackle folk songs, capturing the electric spontaneity of community music making. The production is spacious, but not unnaturally so, affording the music room to breathe whilst retaining the compressed intensity of a band playing in a small room. This music has the intangible quality of appearing at once both earthen and ethereal, teetering on the brink of disorder, Blood Rushing's songs pulse with untamed energy, the album's seemingly polite façade of unassuming acoustic instruments and well-worn song structures is undercut throughout with an intoxicating ambiguity. As such, Blood Rushing is an endlessly engaging, subtly nuanced collection, revealing surprising depth of character over repeated listens. As a trained opera singer, one might expect of Foster a relatively anonymous, if technically proficient, vocal delivery. Yet, it is in her voice that Blood Rushing holds its most lasting appeal. Traversing an endless terrain of timbres and inflections, Foster's voice, like the instrumental performances throughout the album, seems constantly on the verge of collapse. By carefully treading the line between unity and rupture, ecstasy and melancholic fallibility, Foster's singing communicates a remarkably complex and fragile emotional state without ever resorting to overwrought emotive gesture. Whilst there are certainly superficial similarities between the vocalisations heard on Blood Rushing and the contrived eccentricity of some adherents of so-called freak-folk, Foster's vocals eschew any hint of self-conscious affect, radiating a rugged authenticity and candour. Despite its stripped back directness, Blood Rushing is not immune to Foster's affection for high concept: the album has been billed as a glimpse into the world of the artist's alter-ego, Blushing, in the form of a "ballet chanté" (or, a sung ballet). Despite running the risk of suffocating her songs with an imposing overarching theme, Foster prioritises the importance for personal musical communication throughout the album, using her concept to unify and augment, but not dictate, the development of the record. Recorded in Foster's hometown, Blood Rushing is a beautifully lilting, melodious album: this is an album about beginnings, about processing the past and tentatively forging ahead into the void of the future. Or, as Foster sings on the title track: "In Colorado did I begin again / Did I begin to begin again." *** Even as he handed over his flash drive with five-odd Josephine Foster projects to which he’d listened to obsessively, my roommate was surprised to hear she was American, having believed the Colorado native was “Spanish or European or something.” I can’t exactly blame him: borrowing alternately from Romantic classical, art-rock, and Appalachian folk and indulging in album-length adaptations of poetry by García Lorca and Emily Dickinson, Foster has sung variously in German and Spanish as well as in English. Her nebulous, nation-state-defying voice returns on Blood Rushing, a “story within a story” concept album that narrates the account of her author-insert Blushing. Under stars, through the Great Divide of the Rocky Mountains and amid many forms of surging water, Foster-Blushing navigates a fertile world of birth and rebirth. For a musician who frequently works with the lyrics of others (the new record is her first collection of original material since 2008’s This Coming Gladness), Foster is a surprisingly competent and natural songwriter; freed from the constraints of tonal faithfulness owed to giants of poetry like Dickinson, Foster is able to draw from disparate genres to play with whatever form she’s interested in from song to song. That might mean aping Ennio Morricone for ode to the American West “Panorama Wide,” shaping a meandering lazy-river tranquility for ballads “The Wave of Love” and “Underwater Daughter,” or assaulting the listener with the sudden fuck-you psych of “Geyser.” It makes for a slightly unbalanced listen, but the variety is welcome after the relative stylistic uniformity of her last few releases. Foster’s known for her collaborations with other musicians, whether she’s working with Jason Ajemian as Born Heller, the psychedelic backing band The Supposed, or her husband Victor Herrero, with whom she released a collection of Spanish folk songs earlier this year. Herrero is back on guitar for Blood Rushing, joined by A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s Heather Trost on violin, but it’s Foster’s singing that really stands out above the arrangements, above her own carnal lyrics and menstrual imagery, to constitute the heart of the album. Much has been said of Foster’s failed aspirations to sing for the opera, which has left her the rare coloratura soprano who performs loamy, experimental folk music. But perhaps we should be thankful she couldn’t cut it with the lorgnette-clutching snoots in the high boxes of opera houses. And as difficult as it might normally be to place her voice regionally, the Josephine Foster of Blood Rushing embodies a wistful, washed-out Americana that’s right at home among the America-of-old’s fecund landscapes and pristine rivers, an America without pollution of light or noise or waterways, to make the statement, through Blushing, that this is who I am and this is where I’m from. By Ben Rag *** More musically learned than any folk musician likely to come your way, the Colorado born Josephine Foster has kept fans and critical interest ablaze with different stylistic shake ups placed into each of her releases. The fact that Blood Rushing is the first solo effort released under her own name since 2009 shows how unpredictable and experimental the sometimes psychedelic rock, sometimes German ‘lieder’ singer songwriter can truly be. The record is written as a potent cross between a character study and a concept album, wherein our country singer inhabits the mind of ‘Blushing’, a heteronym persona used to explore the inner workings of the artist’s homeland, symbolized by her self-supplied front cover. It’s eerily appropriate given Foster’s exploration into pan-Spanish folk music and culture in 2010’s Anda Jaleo, with our heroine’s origin story as a “valley child in a” “Panorama Wide” leading to a “Child of God” who is “living in the city getting high on the hawk“. Well that’s one guess, as Josephine’s operatic vocals (stunning as they are) might leave you straining to decipher a word or two. In some cases that’s not a great effort, with title track “Blood Rushing” repeating its four or so lines with regular interludes, but if the entirety of the lyrics in “Wave of Love” hadn’t been spelt out in its title, the high pitched singing might have disguised the latter word as ‘laugh’. If all this sounds daunting, in actual listening Blood Rushing is easier than its lyrical concepts set it up to be. Teaming up once again with her partner, Spanish guitarist Victor Herrero, and musicians Paz Lenchantin (The Entrance Band), Heather Trost (A Hawk and a Hacksaw) and Ben Trimble (Fly Golden Eagle), she exposes a delicate singing voice that’s never assaulted or undone by the accompanying percussion, string work or rare uses of electric guitar. If you were desperate for a technical summation of Josephine’s sound you’d best skip to “Underwater Daughter”; a track in which every note and beat strives for beauty, outdone only by the occasional deliberate silence. Be careful you don’t travel one song too early though, as preceding track “Geyser”, marked by the opening screech of deliberately misplayed violin, is the album’s single foray into the psychedelic region Foster previously occupied, and it’s irritably noticeable. Despite this choice nitpick, Blood Rushing succeeds thanks to ample pacing and the comfortable arrangement quickly established through a sober form of expression. There are minor flaws in the delivery of its lyricism, but these tracks somehow succeed in telling a complete story by a more ethereal definition. The words and music are used to evoke a romantic interest in the atmosphere a location or object brings, with language itself matching the elegance of what is conveyed, such as “the sweet little pearls in the waters of mankind”. If for nothing else, marvel at the fact that the opening track “Waterfall” utilizes the normally silly twang of the jaw harp without killing the mood like the instrument has done to every other folk song it’s in. *** I do love it when you get drawn into someone else’s world from the very start of listening to a record. You know that if you stop then you will end up missing something special. The new album Blood Rushing by Josephine Foster has that effect as you instantly get swept away by the sheer beauty and elegance of her voice. Blood Rushing shows Foster pushing the boundaries and proving her worth as a musician and vocalist. Whilst there are beautiful folk songs on this album, Foster also lets her avant-garde soul loose and the end result is mesmerizing. Blood Rushing is like a psychedelic wave that pushes you through to a beautiful place. Opening track Waterfall is full of joy with its jangly guitars and Foster’s voice clear as crystal cutting though. The effect that this has is magical. Panorama Wide and Child of God are two of the standout tracks on the album, as they are full of beautiful layers of guitars, percussion and hauntingly pretty backing vocals. The psychedelic hard-hitting Geyser is absolute genius. Its powerful sound stems in the growling guitars along with Foster’s swirly intoxicating vocals, making you feel like you are in within an inferno. Underwater Daughter has the vintage feel of a 1930s Hollywood musical. You can imagine a girl singing alone looking up at the stars. Her voice is sweet but strong and has the same Americana soulful tone of Alela Diane mixed with the strength and power of Laura Nyro. Foster is an old soul in the way that she writes. Her words are historian like as if she is on a mission to help the lost and lonely with wisdom collected from the past. Her songs are full of truth that weave a spell over you, leaving you captivated and completely at her will. Cat Norris *** Whilst it would be a slight exaggeration – as a critic of some 15 or so years standing – to say that it’s an occupational curse being exposed to too much music before it hits the stores, the fact that music is so readily accessible 24/7 and the fact that it’s almost too easy to release it in one form or another means that focusing time and attention on just one new release is harder than ever. This a situation that almost unfairly prevented this album from Josephine Foster reaching the top of this writer’s ‘to review’ pile. Although given to this scribe by the irrepressibly enthusiastic Fire Records a good few weeks ago it moved to the bottom of the promo CD stack until some well-timed memory-jogging airplay on Cerys Matthews’ 6Music radio show exposed the errors in this listener’s review filtration system. With Blood Rushing elevated in said pile for a fresh airing it has revealed itself as a record of near-uncorrupted earthiness, melodic warmth and stealthy beauty that should by rights put Foster more visibly on the multi-cultured Americana map. Not that it is a straightforward folk-slanted singer-songstress affair. With her formative operatic training, her teenage years as a wedding/funeral singer and her past dalliances with concept albums (such as 2010’s Graphic As Star, which interpreted the work of American poet Emily Dickenson) as well as psychedelic-rock (with The Supposed for 2004’s All The Leaves Are Gone), Foster doesn’t approach things in a straightforward fashion anyway. Yet although Blood Rushing is not an obvious record it is possibly Foster’s most approachable collection to date; one which distils much of her convoluted past into an accessible welcoming present, albeit without conformist compromise. Beautifully recorded by Alabama Shakes producer Andrija Tokic in the unconventional environs of Cherryvale Art Farm in Boulder, Blood Rushing has a wonderfully unvarnished yet professional aesthetic that lets Foster and her multi-instrumentalist ensemble – which includes her Spanish partner and collaborator Victor Herrero – colour the songs with a palette that is diverse yet not overly-rich. Thus the opening lilt of “Waterfall” invites us in with a laidback strum-along before the more widescreen drama of the Morricone-shaded “Panorama Wide” gives Foster’s soprano room to roam free-range. A little later in proceedings with “Child Of God” her band supply a slowed-down unplugged Velvet Underground groove and add empathetic backing vocals to gorgeous uplifting effect. With the mid-point placed title-track, things are stripped-down to a more minimalistic backdrop ahead of being built up again with jazz-slanted guitars and stirring violins. For “The Wave Of Love” things are stripped-back again to largely just Foster’s vocals and strings before a more sprightly setting is given to the soaring “O Stars.” In its wake comes the only misfire of the album with the near-atonal “Geyser,” which feels like an early PJ Harvey demo that’s become uncomfortably warped by age. Thankfully the record’s finale soon after, in the form of the exquisite shimmering “Words Come Loose” – replete with radiant call and response vocals – more than makes up for the minor misdemeanour. Although Josephine Foster may remain an acquired taste to some, the blossoming Blood Rushing is definitely an album that repeatedly rewards a little patience for the previously unconvinced. Moreover, fans of Joan Baez and Tarnation’s Paula Frazer should certainly seek this out immediately. All told, this is undoubtedly one of 2012′s most unexpected pleasures. September 4, 2012 by Adrian P. *** After the foray into arcane Spanish folk music represented by her last album, the prolific Josephine Foster is on another musical trek involving a slightly more rustic grip and a flowing cantina. This time, the liquid is blood – per Foster’s representative, Blood Rushing is “a story within a story; a glimpse into the world of Blushing, a heteronym of the artist Josephine Foster. (It’s) a rock-ballet chanté – the music… set to a Pueblo drum’s meta-pulsing, Pan-American heartbeat.” Victor Herrero is back on guitar. Paz Lenchantin provides Indian flute, bass, and violin. Heather Trost contributes violin and Jew harp. Ben Trimble handles New Mexican skin drums. From the instrumentation, one might expect a sound somewhere between Yma Sumac’s and the Boswell Sisters’. If you’re that one, you’d be pretty on–target. Foster’s soprano vocals tremble through a variety of instrumentation with a more or less “indigenous” or “exotic” folk influence. At best, the effect is that of an otherworldly folk music that might provide new inspiration for Werner Herzog. Bizarro takes on more traditionally styled folk, such as “Child of God,” are also here. But Foster seems at the apex of this journey with the title track, an inspired, partly instrumental submerging in feeling that, to some degree, recalls work by Fraser & Debolt as well as that of Kate Bush. By Mary Leary *** In an unpredictable recording career that has bent and warped just like her distinctive operatic vocals, we’ve heard an array of impulsive musical approaches from the American born singer songwriter. From raw acid soaked psychedelic rock, warping Germanic ballads to musical interpretations of the poems of Emily Dickenson and more recently traditional Spanish-sunshine songs on her previous 2012 release with The Victor Herrero Band, ‘Perlas’ (Review here) . Given Foster’s American origin, an academic take on that album of ‘Spanish music’ calls to question the ‘authenticity’ of the music, although you have to admire the musician’s integration into Spanish culture. However, the whole ‘authenticity’ argument seems to fall apart when you listen to the music and open your eyes and ears to this modern age of Internet free information-access and budget airlines. It seems that our cultural background is only limited to our ability to access the almost unlimited information that’s available to us. The appreciation of Music has a multitude of paths. While an academic approach might get you to places that you otherwise wouldn’t reach, I can’t help but feel that it blocks out most other routes and when it gets down to it, the appreciation of music is essentially a spontaneous guttural reaction that manifests its self as emotion and when taking this into account, academia + music can seem like a contrived, negative and perverted approach. Almost like a filtering system preventing you from being emotionally affected. With this in mind we come to the conclusion that the only true expression of our mish-mashed culture comes from the inspired love of a thing. Which, to be fair is where all ‘traditions’ start. However this time round, it seems that her inspiration has come full circle and we are taken on a musical kaleidoscope tour of her American heritage. This includes, inner city dwelling blues in ‘Child of God’, sweeping panoramas in ‘Panorama Wide’, which contains a prairie roaming musical break that suggests a distinct South American touch and Native American flute on ‘O Stars’. While America is present, there are also songs about her own journey, such as the inescapable emotion of true love in ‘The Wave of Love’ that utilises some gorgeous violin rendering. If you ever find your self in some far-flung random location at night, look up to the sky and you will usually see some familiar friends shining down on you. It seems that the many adventures that we are taken on in ‘Blood Rushing’ the stars are with us, from the stars in the front cover artwork to the songs ‘Sacred is the Star’ and ‘O Stars’. The cover of ‘Blood Rushing’ painted by Josephine Foster seems like a hallucinogenic rearrangement of the American flag, simultaneously celebrating and criticizing the country. It utilizes the good old red white and blue colours, with parting white clouds giving way to a red river waterfall with stars shining though the deep blue universe beyond. The stars however, while obviously representing the States are in an uneven arrangement that doesn’t seem to project the regimented ownership of borderlines. In fact, they seem happy peering though at us, like Van Gogh’s stars in ‘Cafe Terrace at Night’ and perhaps these guys represent the free-roaming cowboy attitude that flows though the folk-rock anthems on the album. While the red river spilling into an ocean of blood could denote the butchering of Native Americans that was involved in founding the country and the continued pointless butchering in other wars further afield. One thing I’ve learnt in my thirty years on this globe is that nothing is black and white. Take that red river on the cover art and the album title ‘Blood Rushing’ for example. As I just supposed, this could be a river of blood spilling into an ocean of blood representing the spilt blood of all the unnecessary American wars, but if you read the lyrics to the song of the same title we learn that, blood is rushing, in the veins of someone blushing. The song itself seems to be about reinventing oneself, which if you’ve been following Foster’s musical career you’ll be well aware that she’s never stopped. Also, if you analyze the lyrics in ‘O Stars’ O stars O stars they shine they shine like the big dipper over-flowing wine They suggest that its not blood, but wine flowing from the stars representing their ever-giving power, there are multiple sides to everything and its left open for us to run off with whatever we think works. Whilst filming with Josephine in Spain just before recording this album she mentioned she was planning on going back home to record after a seven-year hiatus from her country. I said, “Going back to your roots” and she responded “before they completely dry up”. After listening to ‘Blood Rushing’ it’s apparent her roots have drunk well and beautiful revelations of her attitude to the country have blossomed in these songs in the form of a whole trippy encyclopaedia of mish-mashed emotions. I’ve been eagerly following Josephine Fosters’s musical career since 2003. I remember the first time my ears where injected with such glorious vocal tones whilst on tour listening to Devendra Banhart’s compilation ‘The Golden Apples of the Sun’ sitting in a van hearing this other worldly voice come out of the half busted stereo of our broken-down van. I got hold of the first album I could get my hands on, which was ‘All the Leaves are Gone’ where she’s heard being backed up by ‘The Supposed’. Whilst enjoying the unpredictable twist and turns of her glowing output over the years I’ve been secretly waiting for a return to the riotous rock and roll psychedelia of that album and ‘Blood Rushing’ goes some way to fulfil this fantasy, all I need now is the full band to go on tour with a gigantic lighting rig and a bottle of fine whisky. ‘Geyser’ is the most raucous tune and has a fantastic crazed Beefheart madness to it, plus some genius lyrics Fertile, I’m so fertile I’d concieve of anything Which in context with the music seems like it’s referring to an explosion of ideas flowing out with uncontrollable chaos. ‘Underwater Daughter’, a song title that rolls off the tongue with satisfaction has a blissful dreamy quality to it. Personally I feel that it’s an ode to motherhood and plays with the natural feeling a parent has to regard their offspring as almost holy sires. Simultaneously, an offspring’s natural conclusion is that their parents are kings and queens and after all when you think about it, from a child’s perspective, they are the Kings and Queens of their reality. Further more, if you are going to responsibly enter a child into this world you should regard them as treasures. However I feel the notion of motherhood goes beyond the parent/child dynamic and playfully suggests with the idea of who mothered life on earth. Evolution teaches us that all life originated from the ocean, so we have to conclude that the ocean is our mother. There are some real lung busting screamers on this one too, such as ‘Child of God’ which is about the ridicules, over crowed and polluted urban situation we have found our self’s in. Singing along to these blues can exercise demons of uselessness, religious shackles and poor social living standards. I particularly enjoy the lyrics: Don’t it feel silly don’t it feel odd bein’ just a bitty Child of God Which seems to be a statement of the troubled predicament of humans trying to understand the world through organized religion. A fair number of these songs contain spine tingling backing vocals often utilized in a call and response manor sung by Hether Trost and Paz Lenchantin. Hether Trost, being the other half of A Hawk and a Hacksaw who naturally applies her expert approach to the violin, plucking and bowing her way though the songs accentuating the emotion with finesse. She can also be heard playing a bouncing Jaw Harp on ‘Waterfall’, which is a song about dreaming of a goal and longing for it. While Paz Lenchantin of the Entrance Band, ZWAN and sometime PAPA M collaborator, twins up the violin action and executes some stunning Indian flute on ‘O Stars’ as well as getting her bass grooves out. It must also be noted that as well as some excellent Spanish guitar that we’ve come to expect from Victor Herrero, the album features some smooth electric guitar handling where he pulls out all kinds of wonderful sounds such as aquatic bubbling in ‘Underwater Daughter’ and some inexplicably satisfying slide movements in ‘Child of God’. All this is backed up by some pounding New Mexican skin drums by Ben Trimble of Fly Golden Eagle. All things considered ‘Blood Rushing’ makes for some pretty additive folk-rock-pop melodies with top-notch musical performances all round. Led by one of the freshest front woman of our time. Review by: Harry Wheeler
Josephine Foster - I'm A Dreamer (2013) #777Жанр: Folk, World, Country Страна-производитель диска: UK Год издания диска: 2013 Издатель (лейбл): Fire Records Номер по каталогу: FIRECD284 Страна: USA Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks+.cue Битрейт аудио: lossless Продолжительность: 37:10 Источник: what.cd Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: нет 1 Sugarpie I'm Not The Same 2 No One's Calling Your Name 3 My Wandering Heart 4 I'm A Dreamer 5 Amuse A Muse 6 Blue Roses 7 Pretty Please 8 Magenta 9 This Is Where The Dreams Head, Maude 10 Cabin In The Sky
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