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| 0 | LONDON: Cafe Oto |
|---|---|
| P | Monday 4th October, 2010 |
| N | 8:00pm |
One of the most enigmatic, luminious and enlightening American singers of her time sings Federico Garcia Lorca’s popular folk song collection “Las Canciones Populares Espanolas” with guitarist Victor Herroro and live band.
'Anda Jaleo' the recordings of these songs will be released in September by Fire Records. Live the band want to play suitable acoustic spaces. Josephine sings, dances a bit and play castanets with the band whom she describes as “a like a Andalusian jug band playing very energetic and animated music”. Taking their cue from Lorca and La Argentinita’s infectious 1931 recording of the songs, Josephine Foster and her partner Spanish musician Victor Herrero have arranged the poetically rich collection for their new acoustic band, formed while living in the Grenadine Sierra. Anda Jaleo is the band’s live recording of “Las Canciones”; a visceral celebration of the persistance of popular anonymous song.
Lorca is one of the most well known and revered Spanish poets and dramatist who had close associations with Manuel de Falla, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Lorca's collection was banned under Franco’s dictatorship and today the music survives but marginally within the Spanish sub-conscious.
Josephine who has been based in Spain with Victor for a while now has amazingly reset these songs in a beautiful musical setting that is bound to win her even more admirers. The recordings in Spanish of these songs are spectacular in their feel, bringing to mind both Paco De Lucia and Anthony and The Johnstons but there is a lightness of touch that is all her own.
Josephine Foster is not only is a captivating songwriter and performer (former Opera singer!) but she is daring and amazingly versatile and irregular in her subject and form. She has covered Emily Dickerson (Graphic As A Star) and sung German Art Songs (A Wolf In Sheeps Clothing) and released a album with The Cherry Blossoms among other projects. This is another concept she handles with grace and charm and wit but it is still retains that vitality, density and romance that a true poet bestows their work.
She’s a Grace Slick for the 21st Century—and that’s all grace, no slick. An amazing combination of God-given ability and formal skill. You can hear Jefferson Airplane in her music, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Joan Baez…She’s also the one, out of that whole scene that has embraced the electric guitar, while at the same time being the most classical of them all. -Jay Babcock / Arthur
The new first lady of folk Josephine Foster has still seen off all comers to become America’s most adventurous songwriter. Foster’s recent solo set was a bewitching blend of American gothic, psychedelic ragtime, nursery rhymes, folk and mountain music. The fact that at one point in today’s afternoon set her truly incredible theremin-sounding voice is overlaid with an impromptu rendition of Greensleeves from a passing ice cream van only adds to the effect. -Michael Lane /NME
LINKS
http://www.josephinefoster.info/
http://www.myspace.com/josephinefoster
http://www.myspace.com/victorherrero
http://www.myspace.com/jfostervherreroband
