The umbrella term freak folk has been applied to many artists over the years with varying degrees of accuracy. In
Josephine Foster's case, her music is certainly more esoteric than contemporaries like
Joanna Newsom and
Devendra Banhart. Her records have also seen her consistently pegged as an anachronistic artist, but in many respects, her music has never felt timelier.
Faithful Fairy Harmony feels like an antidote to an increasing detachment from each other and the world that has its origins in technology. Even when she's not directly focusing on the natural world, an obscure, bucolic veil hangs over these compositions. Similarly, the production feels distinctly non-digital, warm, and trenchantly real. This visceral quality is evident on the levitating vocal and intertwining harmonies of "Benevolent Spring" that capture the delicate splendor of the season to which this song is an ode.
The jolly gait of "Force Devine" adds a welcome spot of vivacity and features an engaging guitar solo on an album full of enchanting details, like the disorienting kazoo like interruptions of the closing title track. That said, it is
Foster's voice that remains the defining, and truly unique, instrument of her songs. It acts as a conduit to the transporting affect her music has, perhaps nowhere more powerfully than on "I Was Glad." Its quiet grandeur is a remarkable peak in a double album full of enchanting curios. Elsewhere, the wayward melodies of "Lord of Love" tap into the psychedelic character of her music, and in addition, "All Pales Next to You" conjures a wooziness that the intoxicating nature of infatuation elicits.
The mysteries of love, life, and the world are broached with a light yet nevertheless unshakeable touch on
Faithful Fairy Harmony.
Foster has made a record that feels like a psychic connection to inner worlds as well as an outer one, and the visions she summons are at once vivid and rarified. ~ Bekki Bemrose