Josephine Foster + Stella Kola + Ceremonial Abyss. A Colorado composer and mezzo-soprano whose unorthodox arrangements fuse folk music with the avant-garde, breathing new life into archaic forms while embodying the cultural archaeology of Harry Smith’s Old Weird America. Support by Stella Kola, who creates shape-shifting psych-folk ballads, and Northwest-based ambient/tape collage artist CEREMONIAL ABYSS.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM:
A performer whose “music plays games with our ideas of time and space” -The Guardian.
A “Vibrating Voice to Shake the Soul” -NPR
“You might call Ms. Foster’s eerie warbling old-fashioned, except that it evokes a scrambled past that exists only in her own vision: mountain songs that never were, spaced-out hybrids that never will be.” – The New York Times.
Stella Kola weaves haunting ballads that dig deep into the psychedelic-folk tradition while shapeshifting into captivating new forms. Stella Kola began in 2019 as a songwriting project between the singer/poet Beverly Ketch (Bunwinkies / Weeping Bong Band) and musician Robert Thomas (Sunburned Hand of the Man / Dalthom). The duo quickly amassed a body of delicate songs that hover in the twilight of the folk tradition while emanating a peculiar modernity. Ketch’s evocative lyrics have been praised for their uncanny ability to bridge the “prosaic to the fantastical.” They recently released their eponymous debut album featuring a host of masterful musical friends & collaborators.
CEREMONIAL ABYSS is a Northwest-based ambient/tape collage artist. He has toured the US extensively in support of his 2023 self-releases, ‘Tape Study for Four Variants’ and ‘23’. Along the way, CA has performed with artists such as Brenda Iijima, Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans), Lori Goldston, Vi Khi Nao, and Will Alexander (2023 Pulitzer Finalist).