Fleshing out her delicate folk-pop with hints of electronic atmosphere, Frost is Chicago’s answer to Beth Orton and Lida Husik.  She sings carefully chosen words about broken relationships in a dreamy voice, leaving clean incisions that may require stitches weeks after they’re first heard.

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.

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.

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.

For lack of a better description, Edith Frost is usually lumped in with the alt-country crowd, which is, I suppose, fair enough after her country-flecked debut, Calling Over Time, and her supporting roles with such fellow Chicagoans as the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and sad-boy strummer Chris Mills. Yet we may have to rethink conventional wisdom after only one track from her Neil Hagerty / Jennifer Herrema-produced follow-up, Telescopic — "Walk on the Fire" is swollen with buzzy guitars that sound like an army of angry cellos and some lumbering, boxy drums.

Not quite as poetic as she wants to be, Edith Frost is kind of like a Sandy Denny for the Chicago post-rock crew.  On country-noise records like the just-out Telescopic, she writes dim melodies that threaten to turn into 150-watt folk-pop tunes.  And on tunes like 1997’s lovely ballad "Too Happy," Frost drowns her sad, sketchy lyrics in a kind voice that ought to communicate in complete sentences.

Edith Frost’s fine debut record unveiled a folksy singer/songwriter whose introspective music deftly waltzed along the country- pop borderline, but her new effort, Telescopic, tentatively explores the art-sploitation ethos of Chicago’s Wicker Park underground. A mix of clean C&W hickory and piquant avant-rock fuzz, Telescopic is an engaging, if less immediate, record that suffers only from its static mood and pacing.

<…> A little bit country, a little bit Chairs Missing, Frost wrapped double down comforters of purr and strum around cool waltz and swing beats (tapped out at this show by Archer Prewitt, who’d just wound up his own gently transporting set). <…>

A self-professed writer of "cowgirl songs," Edith Frost has definitely been off the ranch since the release of her first album, Calling Over Time. Produced by Royal Trux’s Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema, Telescopic expands Frost’s sound beyond her debut’s country-ish palate. The album opens with a snatch of Sonich Youth-ish guitar and runs through the melancholy reminiscences of "Tender Kiss," tinged with wailing Gypsy violin. In its effortless mix of musical styles and its dreamy, slightly ramshackle feel, the album recalls White Album-era Beatles as much as kindred spirits like Barbara Manning or Liz Phair.

When Chicagoan Edith Frost was recording her second Drag City album, Telescopic, in a nearby Virginia studio with Adam & Eve (Royal Trux) at the producing helm, the lowdown was that folkie Frost was making a "rock ’n' roll" record.  It was cause for some concern, because Frost’s stunning modern country-blues debut Calling Over Time had an acoustically colored, sparse, controlled environment that her songs, tender and sorrowful, seared right through to the undefended heart.  Turns out that Frost has just loosened up slightly, letting some freaky sounds, occasional acid guitars, and simple country drumming settle up against her still artfully crafted folk.  Psychedelia, which was present only in a few chords and within the natural spaciness of her voice on Time, characterizes opener "Walk on the Fire" and much of Telescopic.

It’s Sunday. You wake up at noon, mouth parched, eyes bleary. Your ears are still ringing from the loud music the night before and your lungs hurt from the cigarette smoke. You need something that tomato juice and aspirin won’t fix.

Edith Frost’s new release, Telescopic, is the answer to Sunday morning blues. This may sound odd to anyone who has heard this ex-Austinite’s last effort on Drag City, Calling Over Time. It was a good record, but definitely not something you would put on in the morning to get pumped up.

An ex-traditionalist who sought out ’30s country acts and ye olde country swing for her early covers bands, Edith Frost isn’t quite the timepiece you’d expect. Sure there’s a definite country tinge to this music, and the lo-fi, naive sound sometimes suits, but there’s not a lot of depth or technical skill.