Archive for the tag "calling over time"

"Calling over Time," Edith Frost (Calling Over Time):
"Now you are in paradise…." This haunting campfire lament sounds eerily like a suicide bomber’s widow testifying to faith against hope. "Loving hand turns burning sand to water."

Calling Over Time begins, "I sing the blues most every night, and I wait for the one I lost," and ends with "Albany Blues," where the singer subtly mentions that she might be the one to bail out if things don’t get better. In similar manner, Edith Frost drops hints about what she’s updating; in a bluesy way, she’s fashioning something divine out of the raw material of sorrow, betrayal, and confusion.

edith frost: shivers down your spine
Born of some holy communion between singer-songwriter psychedelia and spooky country blues, Edith Frost’s songs stir up serious longings. And Bob Pomeroy responds

On "Calling Over Time," the title track of her first album, Edith Frost sings a kind of epilogue to the chorus that repeats the phrase "loving hands turn burning sand to water." The notes she sings tumble down a minor scale on a prolonged fall from the upper reaches of the thin, narcotic atmosphere that the song, as a whole, generates. (In fact, the entire record, except for one or two more wide-awake numbers, flows like a dream.)

Edith Frost: Authentic, heartsick, personal & poignant

From a cool and steel gray channel encompassing the horizon, a glimmer of hope emerges. Beauty and optimism slowly wrap around your being as you witness flower petals effortlessly dancing upon the water’s surface with candles calmly floating on leaves set adrift under the dwindling light. Edith Frost is the voice from which the glimmer, the beauty and the optimism spring forth in introspective gentleness.

An Early Frost

Edith Frost approaches roots music in a conscious, educated way. Though such an approach can sometimes lead to stagy, patronizing disasters, Frost resembles fellow country/folk troubadour Gillian Welch in coming at her late-found love with an affection so open and humble that it precludes condescension. And even though Frost’s self-released EP of last year¹ and her full-length album Calling Over Time were released on Chicago’s ultra-hip indie label Drag City, she seems embarrassed by the notion of being part of some "hip" scene. She’s just a 33-year old working gal in Chicago, thrilled to get her first $3000 royalty check from Drag City and trying to figure out how to buy a vehicle so she can go on the road more. "Last May was the first time I played in a town I didn’t live in," she explains.

<…> Recording under her own name, an indie heresy, Frost is perfectly at ease with her gentle strum, clear voice (more Emmylou Harris clarity than Lilith Fair acrobatic), and modest, country-inflected songs. Frost’s earthy sentiments — "Ahh… we’ll snort with pleasure/Ahh… we’ll forego washing" — are not those of the ice-maiden producer Rian Murphy sometimes seems to want her to portray, though David Grubbs’s piano on "Follow" and the harmonium and cymbals of "Denied" have their own sonic appeal. (Reportedly, her current touring band plays these songs markedly differently.)

The timbre of Frost’s voice holds its own with Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies, Liz Phair and Barbara Manning. The lonely desperation and emotional struggles of the lyrics make Frost a peer of Lisa Germano. The murky, acoustic production suits Frost’s songs and voice. So why doesn’t Calling Over Time work the way a Lisa Germano or Liz Phair record works? Because it’s too quiet, the songs lack strong melodies or structure, and the whole thing just sounds too damn dreary and offhand. Or maybe not dreary enough: This music, at worst, sounds merely dim, not truly dark. Only on the solid final cut, "Albany Blues," (vaguely reminiscent of Bobby "Blue" Bland’s version of "St. James Infirmary"), does Frost break out of her mildly downcast mode and launch into something more direct and memorable.

edith frost: beauty’s barest elements

"He no longer loves me / I’m supposed to forget about him / I was just a harbor / A temporary love on loan…" sings Edith Frost on her new, debut full-length Calling Over Time (Drag City), a masterpiece of gently whispered beauty, a lullaby woven within gorgeous, minimal instrumentation. And while the music sways in and out of candle light, the themes of her songs revolve around the tension of love and love lost — sad, slow, and compelling. As her voice drifts about lazily, Edith Frost realizes that she is, like many of us, caught in the middle, diving in and out of other people’s worlds while maintaining her individuality, caught in the ebb and flow of intimate emotion. She is, in every sense of the word, an angel.

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.

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.

Flag Waving

Singer/songwriter Edith Frost is a giddily disarming new arrival in Chicago whose debut album on Drag City, Calling Over Time, is a notable entry from the city’s fertile musical scene.