Josephine Foster - Graphic As A Star, Vinyl LP

Josephine Foster - Graphic As A Star, Vinyl LP

While Foster supplies the music, the lyrics are all lifted from Dickenson's writing, and it's a good fit: the arrangements here are among Foster's most accommodating and stripped back, eschewing her tendencies towards more avant-garde forms (as best put to use on her Born Heller project) in favour of simple folk songs that frame the words sympathetically and uncomplicatedly. Foster even goes acappella at times, which represents a further step in the direction of deference to Dickenson's words; the simplicity and all-round meekness that characterises this record gives it the feel of a 'project' more than a brand new Josephine Foster album. Despite the comparative slightness of musical ambition in these twenty-six songs the very presence of Foster's inimitably otherworldly vocal makes the record essential listening for avant-folk followers everywhere, and the respectful treatment of Dickenson's verse resonates through every recording.

Devotion in all its permutations, spiritual to carnal, are seamlessly explored. In 'Conjugal Bliss', overtones of the 12-string and autoharp gently interplay, sounding like some unearthed Carter family wedding hymn (it bears the subversive subtitle '69' ) while 'How come, Honeycomb?' bounces low in the hips like a sultry old music hall number à la Harry Nilsson. The obliquely sapphic 'Leonine', it's unquiet harp scaling right out of ancient Lesbos, dreams of a kingless land; in 'Sure Am Devilish', a stargazer humbly confesses to a lowercase lord. 'Old Saw', the mesmeric album closer, is a medium's petition to cross the threshold and merge with the holy spirit.

Josephine's enigmatic voice captured once more by frequent co-producer Andrija Tokic in his analog Bomb Shelter studio, where layers of her guitar, piano, organ entwine with Schneider's 12-string, pedal steel and electric bass to rouse a spectral yet full blooded band. The ensuing cycle of songs pulse and glow within the ruins and deep fundamental roots of American song. 

Track Listing:

1. Freemason Drag
2. The Wheel of Fortune
3. Conjugal Bliss
4. Love Letter
5. Sure Am Devilish
6. Leonine
7. How Come, Honeycomb?
8. Old Saw