OTOHan releases its second title - the first illustrated chapbook from musician Josephine Foster. Written during a bout of illness that prevented Foster from playing and performing music, Kneel to Heal is a grateful offering to the restorative power of nature. Across 24 pages, Foster muses upon the simple joys of just being in the world, her figures traversing a landscape of words and imagery that is both playful and deeply felt. There is an uncluttered simplicity to Foster's art, at once charming and profound; a sense of calm and openness reflective of her feeling during its making "of being drawn profoundly into and toward silence" Conjuring the easy fluidity of Shel Silverstein, or the dreamlike, transportive scenes of Marc Chagal, Foster's brushwork digs deep into the soil whilst looking up to the stars. There are no weighty proclamations, no authoritative conclusions, just a shared wonder and a sense of time unfurling alongside the book's creation that offers solace both in its giving and its receiving. The joys of the natural world may be fleeting but Foster seems to suggest that there is no cause for despondency in this, merely an acceptance that this is how reality is. Nevertheless, "what emerges from the mystery.. and that real reality.. will heal".

A beautifully observed baroque masterpiece, part dream pop, part futuristic psych-folk with ambient synths and Josephine Foster’s plaintive guitar. Godmother is a slowly unfolding song cycle that marries a myriad of previous musical escapades with electronic experiments. Exploring new horizons on this record, it sees Foster at her most expressive and hypnotic. Now back home in the mountains of Colorado, Josephine’s 20-year journey to this new nirvana becomes enthralled further with a symphony of synths that sound like they are played in some neighbouring netherworld, through cotton gauze. It’s music that’s devotional, spiritual, a fitting soundtrack for any journey within or without, a means to experience places and vibrations beyond the boundary of time and space. Discussing the record, Josephine explains “You may notice me travelling a bit further sonically from our precious earth, aspiring to rise into broader astral perspective, to contemplate the light and origins of it all, as I do believe there is a grand source that is the sum of it all, us all. Performing all the parts on this recording, you may sense me focussing gestures of my singing into the instrumentation, which is a very great relief indeed, as the voice has such grand dreams to be set free.”

"Certainly always an enigmatic delicacy, this latest from Josephine Foster throws us further into the sublime. With two tracks that seem to complement and almost respond to each other, this latest from Café Oto’s series is a must listen and an exciting departure into fresh territory for this artist. On the first track, “Spellbinder”, Josephine takes us on a journey into the cyclical and interpenetrating layers of three humble instruments. Josephine plays them on top of each other, garnering chance encounters and interactions as she improvises in three through-composed layers, each time in partnership with her voice. She describes her instruments as beloved but imperfect, recalling the pump organ as having “a clumpy pump on the right with uneven delivery” and the folk harp as having “its flaws” but also realizing their advantages by embracing and embellishing their lack. This track is an ascent into the spiraling ephemeral state of being, with vocals weaving in and out chanting her setting of “om mani padme hum,” the sacred Buddhist mantra (translated into English as “Praise to the Jewel in the Lotus”) with each of the six Sanskrit syllables representing key aspects of the Buddhist teachings. In this piece, a cycle of chance encounters channeled through imperfect containers reaches some kind of noble truth here. On the second track “Experiment” Josephine truly goes into unchartered territory in this Cole Porter cover. In true homage to Porter’s lyrics, Foster has never presented a more “experimental” palette of synths and vocals and beats. “Experiment...Make it your motto day and night.Experiment...And it will lead you to the light.The apple on the top of the treeIs never too high to achieveSo take an example from EveExperiment… “ On Foster’s synth lines we almost think early Laraaji or Emerald Web but with the addition of Josephine’s voice I think more of the complex stylings of Robert Wyatt ‘s songcrafting. I also can’t help but think of Arthur Russell’s disco music experiments as it climaxes into a nice thick beat at the end created by Foster’s organ that seems to tie all the loose ends together. Both tracks on this record are cyclical in their own ways and their complementary nature to each other demands repeated listening, creating yet another cycle of the most experimental of earworms yet by Josephine Foster." -Ka Baird -- All music by Josephine Foster -- SpellbinderDouble trio for tenor recorder, lever harp, and pump organ and 3 voices Experiment (from Nymph Errant, by Cole Porter)synth/voice Recorded, mixed and performed by Josephine Foster Photo Silvia Camerin Mastering by Oliver Barrett