Archive for 1998

Hazy, narcotic-hued soundscapes abound on Telescopic, Edith Frost’s second album, which broadens the former Texan’s frugal acoustic approach with a medley of humming and buzzing electric instruments.  Though the album’s lethargic pace initially lulls the listener, Frost’s dreamlike musings of human frailties are melodic, distinctive, and wholly addictive.

Critics lined up to praise Calling Over Time, singer/songwriter Edith Frost’s star-studded 1997 debut.  Thus were hopes high for the follow-up from this "country-Midwestern" queen.  And Frost doesn’t disappoint.  With co-conspirators Ryan Hembrey (Pinetop Seven), Amy Domingues (Tsunami), Rian Murphy (Royal Trux) and others, Telescopic is as good a slice as you’ll savor this year.  Frost’s low, confident voice lies somewhere between Bliss Blood’s and Liz Phair’s, and on Calling Over Time, her guitar and vocals often tumble into minor keys and themes.  With Telescopic, though, the melancholy oeuvre is balanced with poetic metaphor and savvy philosophy, resulting in an immensely personal journey by an artist who feels and understands much around her.  On "Falling," Frost invites her lover to plunge with her, explaining, "The pleasure is worth the fear."  The title track examines the inequality between what we receive from the heavens (starlight, dreams, inspiration) and the white noise we pump into them.  Sonically, Frost melts strings and occasional electronica into her folk; her band sounds live and organic.  The result — innovative music paired with meaningful lyrics and strong songwriting style — is celestial.

If Patsy Cline had lived longer, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine her today, trading nights of sumptuous standards with Bobby Short at New York’s elegant Carlyle Hotel.  As recently released live recordings of Cline have revealed, despite her hard life and hard living, she was less a hardcore honkytonk gal than a wondrous pop stylist.

Chicago chanteuse Edith Frost gets colored with the country brush as well, and the sad songs and influx of steel guitar on her gorgeous new album Telescopic (Drag City) probably won’t help dispel such typecasting.

On her second album, produced by Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux, Edith Frost has replaced the acoustic gentility of her previous recordings with electric gentility, her rootsy melancholia with fuzzed-out psychedelia. But her beautifully understated serpentine melodies remain a constant, and the backup — Rian Murphy, Ryan Hembrey, Amy Domingues, Jean Cook, and Jason Quick, on drums, bass, guitar, and a lot of violin — still caresses her siren’s croon rather than shaping it. Although it would be nice to hear her try a tempo other than mid, Frost obviously has that rare desire to transform herself from within and the even rarer ability to pull it off.

<…> Talking about irony, one album that had its tongue firmly in sarcastic cheek must be Liz Phair’s 1993 debut Exile In Guyville.  Okay, Phair’s from Chicago, but we’re not talking about whitechocolatespaceegg here.  It’s fellow Chicago native Edith Frost we’re interested in.  Her second full-length album, Telescopic (Drag City), was one of 1998′s best.  Frost can sound uncannily like Phair, both have undemonstrative voices that set in sharp relief the powerful irony of their words.  The solipsistic songs on Telescopic seldom vroom above mid-tempo.  But like favourite novels, it’s an album that reels you in more and more.

Some of 1998′s best albums have been made by indie-rockers lifting a glass to the end of irony.  Call it a longing for honest emotion, for music that’s simply beautiful and emotionally moving.  Indeed, powerful albums this year from Cat Power, Elliott Smith, David Gedge’s Cinerama, Mike Johnson and Richard Davies, not to mention the Elvis Costello – Burt Bacharach collaboration, may someday make the late ’90s seem as halcyon an era for sophisticated singer-songwriter stylings as the early ’70s seem, retrospectively, with Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.  Add another name to that list, as well — country-tinged Chicago chanteuse Edith Frost, whose second full-length, Telescopic, far surpasses her first-rate debut, Calling Over Time.

The Ice Queen Melteth
With a hand from Royal Trux, Edith Frost comes in colors

Edith Frost is boy crazy. And she makes no attempt to hide it. "Oh my god!" she groans over the phone from Chicago. "It’s bad! It’s so awful! I’m soooo on the prowl! I’m desperate!" Check out her online diary (edithfrost.com) and the recent entry which stands out most is the one that reads, "Wow, a whole day without getting a crush on somebody."

Frost has long been summed up and drowned out as a melancholy, country-inflected club chanteuse with a tendency to drift into the ether. Part of the delight of her earlier recordings was the close listening they required, but on her latest, TELESCOPIC (Drag City), she’s decided to pump up the volume, and in spots she can get downright psychedelic or jarring. Whether she’s more confident about turning up or just sick of being taken for a shy folkie, it’s a nice unexpected turn and makes a good case for her staying power.