Archive for the tag "telescopic"

"Stop what you’re doin’/ ‘Cause I’m about to ruin/ The image and the style that you’re used to." That’s not how Edith Frost’s Telescopic kicks off; it’s the first line from the Digital Underground’s "Humpty Dance." But wouldn’t it be something to hear Frost get dirty on the mike?

Call Edith Frost the crossover cowgirl, the alterna-country singer who discovered the fuzz pedal.  On Telescopic, her newest Drag City release, she treads the familiar lyrical ground of lost love (so confessional an artist that she has posted diary entries on her web site) but with unexpectedly psychedelic sonic textures, with not just guitar but violin, accordion and singing saw.^*  Her roots are as much in Royal Trux as in Hank and Patsy.  The reflectiveness isn’t diluted, however, by the added dimension.  Her music is so personal that this new genre she’s almost single-handedly invented doesn’t sound alien at all.

In Calling Over Time, Edith Frost and a crew of Drag City all-stars built a lovely, melancholic mood, with David (Gastr del Sol) Grubbs’ piano and organ inserting unsettling chords into low-key country arrangements.  But on Telescopic, Frost’s new Drag City release, a new cast of musicians gave her an almost prog-rock backing, while her vocals, so clear and cold on the first LP, are multi-tracked, burying their distinctive tone under studio frippery.  Looks like she’s building a career along the lines set out by labelmate Will Oldham, whose successive albums and tours are perversely inconsistent, marked by changing sidemen and changing arrangements for no clear purpose other than change itself.  Which is to say, who knows which Edith Frost will appear at this show?  She’s playing with Lullaby for the Working Class and Jana McCall, who went a bit Pink Floyd-y herself on her Up Records debut, so we could be in for the wrong kind of retro-’70s night.

Sat Feb 6 at the Breakroom.

Below Freezing
Edith Frost creates music that fits the season perfectly.

Chicago-based singer-songwriter Edith Frost designs corporate Web pages by day, and on her personal site (accessible at edithfrost.com), her expertise shows. A carefully organized guide to Frost’s discography, tour dates and press bites, the destination includes a gazillion links to locales ranging from the Schwa Corporation to the Stick Figure Death Theatre. Such connections are grouped into utilitarian rubrics such as “Timewasters,” a category that includes the subheadings "Artiness" and "Weirdness."

One listen to Edith Frost’s latest album, Telescopic (Drag City), makes it obvious why the label turned a demo she sent them in 1994 into an EP almost immediately.  Despite her affiliation with one of the hippest indie labels, Frost lacks pretension.  Like labelmate Will Oldham, Frost draws on traditions of country and folk, incorporating them into her own quirky style to great effect.  Frost’s recorded vocals are more akin to a smoother Liz Phair than to Billie Holiday, with whom she has been compared.  Perhaps it’s due to the electric (and often ethereal) approach on her albums, thanks in part to recording help from Chicago contemporaries Jim O’Rourke and David Grubbs of Gastr del Sol and Tsunami’s Amy Domingues.  The live version is more sparse.  Frost conveys beauty and genuine longing in heartfelt — but never clichéd — tunes with surprising ease.  Lucky for us, she’s finally touring out West.

Edith Frost: Getting Warmer

"I’ve been saying it from day one and I’m still saying it: I just don’t want to ever have anything to do with the big corporate music scene."

Edith Frost is an unusual, low-key neo-folk artist known for stark, chilly songs that possess an honesty and directness which somehow makes their aloofness endearing.  A bare-bones, self-titled EP from 1996 introduced Frost’s unique talents, and her full-length followup, 1997’s Calling Over Time, featured such guests as Sean O’Hagan from the High Llamas, as well as an almost Nick Drake-like melancholy.  The new, country-tinged Telescopic is more musically lush and slightly more upbeat, albeit with Frost’s trademark poor-me lyrics.  Frost recently spoke to The Onion about depression, Jewel, high school, and her cat.

With her forbidding, Victorian-sounding name and haunting songs, it’s tempting to romanticize Drag City songstress Edith Frost as some sort of distant, enigmatic poet; yet a visit to her homemade webpage reveals a warm, disarming person who really wants to share her songs with the public. Regardless of her ersonality, she continues to weave an enchanting musical tapestry with her latest album, Telescopic.

Edith Frost, Lullaby for the Working Class, Knife in the Water
Emo’s, Saturday 23

Rooted somewhere in the Midwest, there’s a vast family tree growing from the mulch of Nineties indie rock.  Its branches are surnamed experimental, post-rock, shoegazer, and otherwise pruned-down sparse-rock too young to be named, composed of the members of Tortoise, Gastr del Sol, Palace, and a gazillion others.  Recently alit on its gnarled, inbred branches is Chicago songbird Edith Frost, who can’t believe how her former nest of Austin, which she left early this decade, has grown.  Her openness and excitement about this and every topic belies the often turbid waters of her musical gene pool.

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.