Josephine Foster – I’m A Dreamer

Given the way Josephine Foster’s I’m A Dreamer is produced and presented, it should come as no surprise as the whole enterprise feels totally out of step with the present time.

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Now then, here’s something else; a quirky listen for sure, but a lovely one. Given the way Josephine Foster’s I’m A Dreamer is produced and presented, it should come as no surprise as the whole enterprise feels totally out of step with the present time. Along with the saloon bar nature of the band, (the old Joanna gets quite some ticking on here let me tell you, and that’s a nylon guitar that Foster plays, please note) the voice sounds muffled; sounding like a recording from a wax cylinder. And any act that takes on adapting Rudyard Kipling (Blue Roses) must really dig the past. Regardless, it’s a warm and enveloping sound, and the sort of record that should be heard in pubs.

Sometimes things get a little too coy, or well, vaudeville, as with My Wandering Heart; but Foster’s remarkable voice keeps everything away from parody or getting too flat. Nothing is too derivative or annoying for too long; you regularly get tracks that are fabulously sentimental such as I’m A Dreamer and Amuse a Muse, (the latter being a sort of mildly psychedelic take on a Hinge and Bracket number). Things are very often woozy (but pleasingly so) on Pretty Please and Magenta both of which just reinforce my suspicion that the best place to hear this record is in your local on a Tuesday afternoon.

All things considered, I’m A Dreamer seems to be such a private, out of time listen that you can imagine that it has either always been there somewhere (and has disappeared between some crack in time), or is some sort of invocation that will whisk listener and performers away to some other enchanted place, where they still use old money and there are no fridges. Well worth your time though.