Josephine Foster – The Coming Gladness [Bo’Weavil]

“Brothers... Sisters... Welcome to the garden of earthly delights,” the opening lines of The Coming Gladness, which unfold (without delay) the truths of Josephine Foster’s unbounded talent. Foster, an opera dropout born in Colorado whose captivating voice sounds like a grouping of Peruvian goddess Ima Sumac, free-jazz songster Patty Waters and the vocal styles adopted by the British psych-folk artists of the 1960’s is not only at the forefront of outsider folk, but existing and creating entirely on her own plane. The Coming Gladness remains faithful to Foster's peculiar folky methodology, revisits her psychedelic days when she was in The Supposed, while also balancing new and fascinating territory. With the help of percussionist Alex Nielson (who has worked with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Current 93) and guitarist and fellow Bo’Weavil label mate Victor Herrero, The Coming Gladness takes slight free-improv wanderings. At times Foster, Nielson and Herrero sound like the Tren Brothers and Gastr del Sol. Yet unlike some of Gastr del Sol’s work, The Coming Gladness has an enchanting way of taking tangents that unearth the arrangements rather than lose them. Dissimilar to the majority of free-improvisation, the centerpiece of The Coming Gladness is Foster’s remarkably potent voice, which casts a spell on the instrumentation and congregates the content. The result is radiant and completely of its own. Foster parallels Tim Buckley, not that she emulates his sound, but that her voice and accompanying instrumentation is like nothing heard before or since.

Bardos Freedoom