In 2005 I happened to be at a show where Josephine Foster was playing, and from the moment she picked up a guitar I was totally captivated. People call this stuff the "new weird america" but I just see a remergence of themes that have been with humanity from the onset. As long as there are people, there will be folk music.
That said this is Foster's first solo album and a departure from her earlier work with Born Heller and the Supposed, two entirely different avenues that are worth exploring. These are ballads from a sonic place most of us forgot we knew about, songs with a bizarre familiarity that I believe comes from the deep-seated conciousness manifested in this music.
From a Dusted review:
"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...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. Foster resists order. Her voice flickers like pale flame around lyrics you’d expect to find in the 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. "
The vinyl is long out of print as far as i know but the CD is available at http://www.locustmusic.com. Her latest album The Coming Gladness is out on Bo'Weavil Recordings. This is some special stuff.
"The Siren's Admonition" – 4:24
"Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You" – 3:26
"By the Shape of Your Pearls" – 1:22
"Stones Throw from Heaven" – 3:18
"Where There Are Trees" – 1:22
"The Golden Wooden Tone" – 3:01
"There Are Eyes Above" – 3:50
"Celebrant's Song" – 3:41
"Good News" – 3:07
"Trees Lay By" – 2:59
"The Pruner's Pair" – 3:10
"Crackerjack Fool" – 2:40
"The Way Is Sweetly Mown" – 4:44
"Hominy Grits" – 2:21
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