Josephine Foster — Cassette

Intro

Josephine Foster sounds like a time traveler who accidentally brought an opera singer's technique to a 19th-century Appalachian porch. Her music is defined by a high, warbling vibrato that feels both fragile and immensely powerful, often accompanied by the sparse, skeletal strumming of a guitar or ukulele. It is music that feels 'old' not in a retro way, but in a primordial, haunting way, as if the songs were unearthed rather than written.

What makes her truly distinctive is her refusal to adhere to modern vocal trends. While her peers in the New Weird America scene often leaned into grit or whispery intimacy, Foster leans into a formal, almost classical discipline that she then subverts with avant-garde structures and surrealist lyrics. Her voice has a physical presence that can feel like a ghost in the room, moving between Tin Pan Alley charm and dark, Germanic lieder with unsettling ease.

Start with 'Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You' for a perfect introduction to her dusty, acoustic world-building. If you want to hear her at her most experimental and conceptually daring, 'A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing' offers a fascinating bridge between classical art songs and psychedelic folk sensibilities.

Josephine Foster is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Colorado. She is known for her anachronistic voice and work that weaves older styles with the modern, escaping simple classification. As a teenager, Foster worked as a church singer and aspired to become an opera singer. She moved to Chicago in 1998 to further her opera studies, and began home-recording her songs, resulting in the albums There Are Eyes Above, influenced by Tin Pan Alley, and an album of children's songs, Little Life. She then released collaborative albums with local folk bands The Children's Hour (SOS JFK), Born Heller (S/T), as well as All the Leaves Are Gone, a psychedelic rock album with backing band The Supposed. A number of solo records followed, including the all acoustic Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, an unorthodox collection of 19th century German Lieder titled A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, and This Coming Gladness, a psychedelic folk-rock album. Foster released most of her recordings the following decade with Fire Records, including Graphic as a Star, her settings of 27 Emily Dickinson poems. Thereafter she began to record frequently with engineer Andrija Tokic, who co-produced with Foster her solo albums Blood Rushing, I'm A Dreamer, and Faithful Fairy Harmony; also More Amor, a psych-folk album by her new band Mendrugo formed with Victor Herrero. The latter was Foster's first foray into writing lyrics in Spanish. Foster lent her voice to the soundtrack for the 2020 film, The World to Come, and sung (as well as co-wrote) the titular song over the end credits.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA →

Our Catalog14 Albums · 2000 · 2023