Edith Frost is currently a big deal, almost by accident really, but deservedly so. Her unique, lonesome brand of ambient folk has caught the ear of numerous critics, nearly all of whom have gone bananas over her in the past year or so, and of Drag City, who have sensibly started making her sounds available to the vast buying public (in other words, you and me). She recently followed her debut American full-length release, CALLING OVER TIME, with a rambling tour of the US (i saw her; she was great; if you missed it, too bad for you) and stands to release a new album, TELESCOPIC, on Drag City in October. For more info, we must go to the cowgal herself....
DA: The new album sounds almost ambient in places... are you actually influenced by the likes of Eno and other soundscape artists?
EF: Well, CALLING OVER TIME isn't exactly a new album anymore, I have a newer one called TELESCOPIC that's supposedly coming out on October 20th (also on Drag City). Anyway... I think the ambient-ness of C.O.T. may have been more due to the combination of players, than anything I was aiming to do myself. David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke in particular are both very into that kind of music. I am too but I'm not necessarily trying to sound that way myself; I just played the songs the way I normally played them and let the guys play whatever they wanted around what I was doing. Jesus! It's a tough question because I never know why things come out sounding the way they do.
Rian Murphy had a lot to do with it, though, because he was the one who ordered people around, as producer... he would say "we need some piano there," or pedal steel or whatever, not writing the part, but telling us more or less when to play and when not to play. It just seemed like restraint was the way to go with those songs... we all thought they sounded pretty good the way they were and didn't do a lot of overdubs. We didn't have time for that anyway! We recorded I think fourteen or fifteen songs, did overdubs and vocals and mixed everything down, all in six days. So there wasn't a lot of time to monkey around with the arrangements.
DA: The record's minimalism makes it a pretty subtle listen. Do you find people have to hear it several times before they really "get it"?
EF: Gee I don't know what people do! I imagine they might like it right away if they listened to it in the proper environment, like maybe alone in the car, or at home when it's quiet. It's a quiet record and it seems to demand a certain amount of listening-attention. I think the new record is going to be a little easier to approach for people -- it's a little more upbeat so it might hold up better in, say, a noisier environment than C.O.T. does.
DA: As far as that spooky western-on-Valium sound goes (a good sound!), are you planning to continue in that vein, or will the next album veer off in a different direction?
EF: TELESCOPIC sounds like that in places, but for the most part it's a lot busier musically. More instruments, more vocals, drums on almost every song... see, I didn't want to do another record in the same style as the first one. I couldn't do that if I tried! People have asked me why I don't sound more like the record when I play live... but how could I? I'm playing with different people, and this is two and a half years later. I don't want to play these songs the same frickin' way the rest of my life. And like I said, I couldn't do that if I tried. That's what makes the recordings so special (and the performances too hopefully!), because they really are unique unto themselves. I don't usually do a whole lot of rehearsing, either for playing live or recording... and I play with different people so it sounds different every time. The only constant is my own guitar-playing and singing, I don't change that too much.
DA: How different was it to work with an actual band on this record after recording the previous ones alone?
EF: It was pretty weird and cool because (a) I'd never really met these guys before I went to record with them, (b) I'd never been to Chicago, and (c) I'd never in my life had possession of a real recording studio for six whole days in a row! I'd never recorded an album, which is a really complex and fun thing to do. It was surreal... I couldn't decide whether I felt like Cinderella or Alice in the fuckin' looking glass.
DA: I know you've made some appearances on records beyond your own -- can you tell me a bit about those and the circumstances behind them?
EF: It's always been a case of a good music-buddy of mine asking me if I'd like to contribute (vocals or whatever) to their project. People I knew pretty well already... Jon Langford, Chris Mills, Songs:Ohia, Jim O'Rourke, Gastr del Sol. These are all good friends, folks that I've been playing with for a couple of years now. It's always a really fun thing to do!! It's like, my friend has this studio time and I can just pop over there and put some stuff down... it only takes one hour of my life compared to the eons it seems to take to make a record of my own!
DA: Obviously you haven't been touring with the band on the album. Tell me about the guys you're playing with now and how the tour's gone....
EF: It seems like I hardly ever play with the exact same lineup twice!! It's my own fault because I insist on playing with these people that are IN other bands and HAVE lives of their own! haha... but yeah, the tour in May went great. That one was with Ryan Hembrey on bass and Gerald Dowd on drums, and we had several guest players along the way as well. I'm doing a week-long tour-let in a couple of weeks, opening for David Grubbs with a slightly different lineup... Ryan on bass again, and Steve Dorocke on pedal steel & dobro. Gerald couldn't make it due to a scheduling conflict, and neither could my "other" drummer Glenn Kotche. (Haha! WOW, I have drummers all over the place!) But anyway I guess all that stuff will be old news by the time people read this. I guess just play with whoever I can, whoever happens to have the night off! It's good to know lots of musicians when the ones you know are all involved in multiple projects.
DA: When i saw you at 33 Degrees, you and the band were rocking a fair bit harder than the record. Was that just a byproduct of playing live, or more or a conscious decision?
EF: There was a bit of a conscious decision on my part to put a little more rockin' into the show this time. The arrangements on TELESCOPIC are a lot livelier than the ones on CALLING OVER TIME, and I wanted to bring a little of that extra juice to my live set as well. I'd started playing my Stratocaster more, and I bought a good guitar amp... plus Gerald can be a really powerful drummer when he wants to! The combination of Ryan and Gerald, that's the most kickass rhythm section I've ever worked with. So the sound was just naturally beefed up for all those reasons. We're going to be sounding a lot more laid-back on the tour that's coming up, though, because of Steve's extra twanginess combined with the absence of Gerald's drumming.
DA: How's your reception been in Europe? I'm kind of curious since they seem to have an affinity for whole stripped-down, country-blues Americana thing that you obviously do so well.
EF: Well, I'm not distributed outside the U.S. per se -- other than the "Ancestors" single on Trade2, which was a total fluke, my records have only been available as imports in Europe. (Yeah I know, we're working on that!) So, since they're hard to find, they haven't gotten as much attention as they have here in the U.S. But there have been a few reviews here and there... Germany, France, Australia, and some places that seem really weird to me, like, I dunno, Hong Kong. I've gotten e-mails from people in the strangest places, saying they really dig my music... Malaysia, Kuwait... how do they find this stuff?!? I mean it's weird enough that somebody in Ohio's hearing it, much less someplace I've never even been before.
I did a week-long tour with the Boxhead Ensemble in France last November, that was the first time I'd ever been to Europe. And it was funny, it seemed like maybe about 10 or 15 people in the crowd at any one show would have actually heard of me or known about my music. Which also true half the time I play here in the US!!! Which makes me think that the average French concertgoer must be just a little bit better informed about American music than we are ourselves... they don't have near the access to it, yet the recognition-ratio seems practically the same as when I play someplace in the U.S. where I've never been before. (I hope that made sense... I can insult my own kind right? ;-)
DA: You used to live in Austin -- how different did it seem to you when you returned to play recently? Did you enjoy coming back?
EF: I LOVED IT!!!! That Emo's show was the biggest gas for me, I can't tell you how much fun that was. And the 33 Degrees thing was like icing on the cake, an extra chance to hang around town a little longer, showing off for a bunch of my old friends. I couldn't believe how many people showed up to both shows... it was soooooo cooooooool. I have to get back there soon, I wish it wasn't so damn far away!!
As far as how the town has changed though... well, some things seemed the same and other things had changed a lot. The topography I mean, like things that had either disappeared or moved down the street (i.e. Amy's on Guadalupe). WHERE is the Terminix bug now?!? I demand an answer!! I was just aghast when I saw it was gone from that corner on Lamar. But I went into Ruby's BBQ and Oat Willie's (where I used to work) and they were both almost exactly the same as they were ten years ago when I lived there. Eehhh... things change, time passes. It didn't bother me too much.
DA: Have you heard the Smithsonian reissue of the FOLKWAYS ANTHOLOGY? I think you might have (it's right up your alley), and I'm curious to know what you think of it....
EF: Well I haven't had the money for it lately, but Rian Murphy gave me a copy of it, on three cassettes... it's really really good. But it's in the car and I'm always listening to these fucking French language tapes so I haven't even had a chance to hear the whole thing yet, much less get to know the music like I should. It's so great they released that stuff though -- I've been living with the same oldtimey music for a lot of years now, so it's awesome to get a giant fresh new (old) batch of stuff like that. Hear hear!! It IS right up my alley, it's exactly what I WOULD be listening to if I weren't so obsessed with this learning-French b.s.!! :-)