First album in 20 years from the enigmatic, elusive, US singer-songwriter Edith Frost. Psychedelic dreamscapes and brightly-coloured pop candy sit comfortably together.
Release Date: 28th February 2025
Label: Drag City
Formats: Vinyl / Digital
LONG TIME GONE
It’s taken US singer-songwriter Edith Frost quite some time to get around to recording and releasing her 4th album but she’s finally managed it. The new album, In Space, is an absorbing collection. Edith’s dreamy psychedelic dreamscapes sit comfortably alongside a handful of light, brightly-coloured poppy confections. It’s a mix that works wonderfully.
It’s certainly been a long time. Edith’s last album was her 2005 offering, It’s A Game and an awful lot of water has passed under all our bridges since then. In Space has been described, variously, as: “Twelve songs that take measure of isolation beyond the horizon of memory. Freezing time, then cracking it into crystalline shards.” More directly: “A way-out country soul expression charting a heartening renewal of commitment and form.” Both descriptions are appropriate but you’ll really need to listen to In Space to understand why…
Edith’s career began back in the 1990s, first as a member of The Holler Sisters, then The Marfa Lights and, eventually, Edith and the Roadhouse Romeos. She moved to Chicago in 1996 after signing with the Windy City’s Drag City label (she’s since moved back to her native Texas. Her debut solo album, Calling Over Time, was released in 1997. As well as writing and singing her own material – in a voice that’s drawn comparisons to Judee Sill’s – she plays guitar and just about every kind of keyboard you can imagine.
AN INTRIGUING ALBUM
In Space is an intriguing album. The instrumentation is largely – though not entirely – sparse, mainly guitar and discrete keyboards, interspersed with a few full-band arrangements. Edith’s vocals are intimate and tuneful and her lyrics are largely – though, again, not entirely – enigmatic. It’s the kind of album that begs to allowed to wash over and absorb the listener.
A long, slow keyboard motif, supplemented by occasional lazy strums on a guitar provide the intro to Another Year, the album’s dreamy opening track. Edith’s voice creeps from each speaker as she provides the reassurance: “If you can hear me, I’m so glad you’re safe at home,” and the message is clear. Let the dreaming begin. Chugging guitars, bass and percussion provide a richer backing to Nothing Comes Around, but the mood is still dreamy and ethereal. However, we do get a hint of the poppier moments to come as Edith sprinkles a soupçon of glam rock into the song’s “I’ll be glad to ride beside you…” section.
A choir of Edith’s voices has been assembled for the excellent What A Drag. A break-up song that, with lyrics like: “What a drag – I’m gonna blow it, baby. I just know I’m gonna tear the curtains down, when I come around,” manages to be soothing and utterly disconcerting at the same time.
CRYPTIC LYICISM
Cryptic lyricism is a particular feature of In Space, and there’s an outstanding example of that feature in the bluesy, poppy, Hold On. It’s the first of several songs on the album to feature a full-band accompaniment. Lyrics like: “What’s the deal with the man on the train, when you stand there with your hands in your pockets and you don’t even hold onto the rail” leave the lasting impression. Lyrics that are enjoyable and thought-provoking in equal measure.
The lyrics are equally impenetrable for the engaging Can’t Sleep. The Edith Frost one-person choir is back, before things take a sharp left turn for the rich, sleazy Back Again, possibly the album’s standout track. Built around a persistent piano figure, it’s dressed in a sweet lounge-jazz coating and decorated with fluid guitar licks. Edith pulls no punches as she sings: “I’d rather go blind than to see you one more time… Never want you back again.” There’s nothing enigmatic in lyrics like that. She tells it exactly how she sees it, and it won’t be a comfortable listen for its intended recipient!
THE DREAMIEST OF THE DREAMY
It’s been reported that: “Edith discovers space everywhere she travels, within her and without her.” That’s a sentiment that pervades the lyrics, the arrangement and the delivery of In Space, the album’s soothing title track. It’s the dreamiest song on an album of dreamy songs and it encapsulates everything that Edith is trying to communicate. From the canyons of her mind, Edith takes a giant leap into the first psychedelic glimmers of the mid-1960s for the candy-coloured Little Sign. It’s a charming song with an authentic pop swing. Edith’s delivery is joyful and lyrics like “Make up a little sign, get happy with your mind” fit the acid-dabbling experiments of the period, too.
And Edith holds onto the sixties vibe for Something About The War, a slower ballad with a solid bass and drum backing and dustings of chiming guitar. Edith’s lyrics are, once again, highly enigmatic and she delivers them in a delightfully wistful tone. There’s sadness and determination in Edith’s lyrics to The Bastards. A song in which, first, reflects on the happiness and fun that been has been driven out of our daily lives, before issuing a rallying call for the fun to be retrieved. All to a jolly, if wearily resigned, tune.
EVOCATIVE MUSIC AND ECSTATIC CONTENTMENT
There’s a lot of evocative music on In Space but it is, perhaps, the excellent Time To Bloom that takes the dreamy imagery to another level. A light-as-air song, set to a doomy guitar figure, it takes the listener on an airborne voyage over a soft desert landscape, before the guitar and the idiosyncratic percussion crank up the volume and bring the listener back to planet Earth.
All that leads to the summery, folky I Still Love You, the album’s breathy, intimate closing track. “I still love you” is the song’s gentle refrain but, this being an Edith Frost song, there’s more to the story. Nevertheless, it’s a nice way to end and it leaves behind an aura of ecstatic contentment.
Watch Edith Frost perform Back Again, a song from the album, here:
Edith Frost online: Official Website / YouTube / Bandcamp
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