The operatic voice of Josephine Foster is such a powerful and eccentric instrument that it has often seemed a slightly irregular fit no matter what sub-genre she's tried to pack it into. With her haunted, theatrical delivery, Foster cuts an arresting figure-- whether through the rustic balladry of her duo Born Heller, the snaky acid rock of 2004's All the Leaves Are Gone, or the avant-folk of 2005's Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You. But with her latest solo work, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Foster has found perhaps the most appropriate vehicle yet for her singular and affecting talents-- 19th century German art-songs, wholly reconstructed here via Foster's skeletal arrangements of voice and guitar.
Written in a form known as "Kunstlied" or simply "Lieder," the songs on A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing were composed by such Romantic Era greats as Johannes Brahms and Franz Schubert, with lyrics based upon the texts of writers like Johann Goethe or Eduard Mörike. Though poetic by design, it was also not uncommon for Lieder lyrics to feature a brief, fable-like narrative, giving many of these songs the appearance of a traditional ballad or folktale. Needless to say, the dramatic range and construction of these pieces nicely dovetails with Foster's idiosyncratic vocal swoops and warbles, and regardless of any language barriers she sounds perfectly at home in this gothic, Old World environment, as well as with the guttural patterns of German speech.
The album opens, aptly enough, with a version of Schubert's "An Die Musik", a short, rapturous ode to music with lyrics by Franz Schober. All is quiet on this track, with Josephine's multi-tracked vocals harmonizing over acoustic guitar, until suddenly guitarist Brian Goodman (of Foster's psych-rock group the Supposed) rips into a knobby and splintered electric solo that seems transmitted from another century entirely. And though some listeners might find Goodman's forceful presence on this and other tracks to be intrusive, his work provides a crucial streak of impulsive expression that keeps the album from seeming an overly reverent exercise in front-parlor nostalgia.
This sense of spontaneous creation is maintained on the following "Der König in Thule", which spirals into a glorious eddy of a cappella overdubbed vocals. On "Die Schewestern", a Brahms composition that relates a tale of romantic jealousy between two sisters, Foster's vocal is effectively dual-channeled to better approximate the song's twin narrators, while on Schumann's "Wehmut" she sounds as distantly lonesome as the lyrics' yearning nightingale.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing reaches its experimental apex on Foster's epic-length treatment of "Auf einer Burg", a Schumann piece whose lyrics portray a rather turgid storyline complete with a decayed castle and weeping bride. Here her voice takes on a dissolute, glassy luster while ghostly shreds of guitar and feedback crumble into the shadows. The creepy, unsettling theater of this performance is further enhanced by an immediate segue into the album-closing "Näne des Geliebten", a lovely slice of sunlit folk that breezily recalls the traditional work of Shirley Collins. On these pieces and throughout the album, Foster displays her unique ability to fully inhabit the space of a song- no matter how outlandish or anachronistic its details may seem. In so doing she is able to recast these ageless works in her own solitary image, an image that seems more acutely defined the further backwards she casts her gaze.
