"It’s old but it’s good," Neil Young once sang. He was talking about extraterrestrial dope, but he could’ve been singing about this wonderful album. Edith Frost is a Texan transplanted to Chicago by way of New York City. She’s backed by modernists culled from the Drag City poker pool: Gastr del Sol, Rick Rizzo, Sean O’Hagan (the High Llamas) and Rian Murphy. But Frost’s music is concerned with updated tradition, not avant-garde exploration. Her subtly echoed, multi-tracked singing recalls Patsy Cline but substitutes the hue of an introspective folk singer for Cline’s honky-tonk brass.

I’m absolutely in love with this single — the singer, too, and not just the songs. Edith Frost put out an album I regrettably didn’t hear on Drag City last year, but this single points to labelmates Palace’s new country rock — but Edith Frost is somehow much more than this. "Ancestors" is beautiful in the way that a dream that is completely scary, chilling, and forlorn can still reveal heavenly scenery. "Secrets" loosens things up, pulls you back from the abyss, with a gorgeous tune with a guitar sound like the clomp of a horse and the ghost of Patsy Cline. The fact that country music’s best singer is not getting nearly the respect she deserves and on an indie-rock label is perhaps as condemning a statement as can be made about the state of modern county and western music.

Chicago chanteuse Edith Frost quickly follows up her exceptional full-length debut, Calling Over Time, with three more songs of equal quality. Like those on Frost’s debut EP, these new songs are more sparse than those of Calling Over Time, which features a cast of backing musicians. The only other musician heard on these three songs is Kramer (who produced them), who adds a touch of bass and synthesizer to the eerie, hollow sounds of "Ancestors."  "Secrets" and "Cold And On My Mind" are the sort of back porch ditties we’ve come to expect from Frost: simple acoustic guitar-based songs with a touch of blues and a twist of country.

Edith Frost, a 32-year-old refugee from an underground country-music scene in New York who is now based in Chicago, has made a debut album that’s built to last. More to the point, it’s almost designed for a long wait before its discovery, with its close-to-the-vest inward guilelessness, its austerity and desolate emotionalism.

An allegedly local singer-songwriter whose low profile casts a captivating silhouette, Edith Frost writes songs that combine folk poignancy with Beatlesque elegance. Her self-titled debut EP and new album Calling Over Time offer glimpses of distinguished grace, like a rare bird in flight — all the yearning devotion of Mazzy Star or Palace, but without the attitudinal posturing.

Si la musique d’Edith Frost reste chaste comme chez le plus austère John Cale, le chant se charge de caresser les sens.
Edith crée son
EDITH FROST Calling over time (Drag City/Pias)

…CALLING OVER TIME re-maps the darkest of territories, recalls the most poignant of moments and listened to under the right circumstances is…levitational. Can’t recommend it enough.

On her debut LP, singer-songwriter Edith Frost fulfills the promise hinted at on her intriguing but one-dimensional EP from last year. As on the earlier record, Frost’s quiet, folky songs are mostly minor-key affairs gently strummed on acoustic guitar with minimal accompaniment. But where the EP’s songs all sounded like undernourished variations on the same theme, her new material is far more substantive and varied. The wistful title song unfurls in a beautifully coiling melody while "Too Happy" incorporates a surprisingly light, almost jazzy tempo and a bouyantly extroverted tune. The record also benefits from the low-key, wonderfully nuanced piano and guitar backing provided by Gastr del Sol’s David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke, Eleventh Dream Day’s Rick Rizzo and the High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan. Their muted dissonance on "Shadows" adds a fine, fitting edge to the music.

Intensely depressing songs of lost love and yearning for dead lovers, oozing with sadness, melancholy and despair. Minimal, dirge-like, mostly acoustic accompaniment (guitar, piano, organ) evoke a really depressed Mazzy Star, if that’s possible. Unlike blues, which can cheer up a broken heart, this will push you to contemplate suicide if you’re THAT low! Not my cup of tea these days! (1, raised to 2 so as not to bum Ms. Frost out too much further!)

"I sing the blues ‘most every night," sings Edith Frost on her album’s opening cut, "Temporary Loan," and the subdued blue tone of this song glows throughout her debut, which offers a very personal, very solitary version of the blues. Echoing the four melancholy tunes on her EP of last year, these new songs tip-toe in different directions, touching upon folk, blues, country and artier strains, but are always anchored by Frost’s breathy, but confident, voice. While she recalls other plaintive-voiced singers, Frost achieves her own distinctive voice: She has a higher, sweeter sound than Kendra Smith, and an earthier, less ephemeral tone than Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval.

Edith Frost a disappointing addition to Drag City
‘Calling Over Time’ settles for mediocrity

From its inception, Drag City Records has been on the forefront of the music industry.  Where others were too shy or hesitant, Drag City charged ahead, braving new and uncharted waters, discovering sonic exotica every time.  Looking back at the seminal first records by Pavement, the adoption of avant-garde superstars Gastr del Sol, the careful cultivation of the latent talents of Bill "Smog" Callahan, the rescuing of Mayo Thompson and the Red Krayola from 1960s obscurity (into 1990s obscurity), and Palace, it seems that the folks at Drag City knew something that no one else did.

But with the release of Edith Frost’s Calling Over Time, it seems that whatever remarkable intuition and foresight the masterminds behind Drag City once had is faltering — or they’re now settling for mediocrity, which is what mostly stands out from this album.

Unlike labelmate Bill "Smog" Callahan, Edith Frost’s earnest-hearted acoustic pitter-patters are painfully uncompelling.  She tries her damndest to stir your soul, but since her music — though sometimes pretty and all — has little soulful quality itself, Frost’s efforts entirely in vain. [sic]

Here’s another girl and her guitar strumming sweetly creepy tunes in the dark. This is in the same vein as Liz Phair, Juliana Hatfield and, at times, even Kendra Smith. Frost (rumor has it she hails from San Antonio, Texas) has produced a very respectable debut on the illustrious Chicago-based Drag City alterna-label. Standouts are the slumpy swing-driven "Blame You," the Opal-influenced "My God Insane" and the casio freak fest of "Waiting Room." (This is not a cover of Fugazi’s life angst mantra.)

Frost seems to be a tad disturbed and lost in la-la land. But she’s definitely got something going right for her. I’d say this is someone to look out for in the coming months/years.

Having been told about Edith Frost from a fellow SnackCake! staffer, who knows my soft spot for this sort of thing, I picked up this EP the minute I saw it, and haven’t yet regretted it. Singing sad, plaintive songs backed mostly by acoustic guitar, with other odd noises, keyboards and drum machines, Edith sounds like an apparition that is stuck in the house at the end of the block that the neighborhood kids cross the street to avoid. And if she were such a spirit, she would be that of a singer killed in a tragic car accident, or a transatlantic flight in 1982 on her way to audition for 4AD or Creation. Drag City once again comes through with another charming record in this time of "P.U.N.K., Inc." and Yes out-takes run through the Sludge-O-Matic reverb unit in a feeble attempt to be passed off as high art. Go Edith, go.

Edith’s confident voice doesn’t evoke Mary Lou Lord as much as I thought it was going to but perhaps a more secure / song oriented Chan Marshall? Edith’s voice brings out as much hurt and longing but hers is more one of resignation, especially when she says "I’m tired of fighting for air" in "Blame You." "Evangeline" isn’t a Matthew Sweet cover but a haunting femme-Drake sound. On "My God Insane" her voice sounds distant and the extra guitar was a nice touch. "Waiting Room" (I’ll assume not a Fugazi cover?) sounds more mechanical due to synth drums but once again, Emily’s (sic) vocals bring a certain warmness to it. Not amazing but a solid listen through all 4 songs.