A review of my first EP by Jason Ferguson that appeared in the October / November 1996 issue of Magnet Magazine…

If a female cross between Skip Spence and Nick Drake could be imagined, the result would be somewhere near the sound of Edith Frost. On this four-song EP, our heroine sets off the melancholy meter with a ghostly combination of her voice and sparse, acoustic guitar. However, this isn’t any sort of insipid Liz Phair / Mary Lou Lord jive-fest that finds the protagonist moaning and whining over poorly played guitar in an attempt for indie-rock cred. Nor does Frost seem to have any sort of tolerance for either folk or country music. As such, these four songs exist in that sort of uncomfortable ether occupied by musicians like Kendra Smith (who is evoked on the echoey "My God Insane") — musicians who make music that sounds ilke, well, music. That its lone musical accompaniment is guitar (except for the weird drum machine on "Waiting Room"), that it’s sung by a woman and that it’s released by Drag City are all irrelevant when it comes to the perfect simplicity of these genre-less songs. They are simply songs, and that, in this day of rampant pigeonhole-over-quality thinking, is a refreshing reminder that there are actually people out there who still care more about the music they play than the description they fit. Simple is good.