Formed in Chicago in the early 2000s, The Children’s Hour featured the vocal and multi-instrumental talents of Josephine Foster alongside the guitar and bass of Andy Bar. Gorgeously folky, they released one LP in 2003 and then recorded some tracks with the addition of David Pajo on drums, material that was long lost and recently thankfully found, mixed, mastered, and scheduled for release as Going Home. It’s available February 23 via the Sea Note label with distribution by Drag City.
Not to be confused with the mid-’80s New Zealand-based Flying Nun-affiliated outfit Children’s Hour, the outfit reviewed here, until recently, was mainly discussed as one entry in Foster’s prodigious body of work. Had Going Home been finished and released in a timely fashion, the group would surely be remembered differently, as Pajo’s involvement was a direct result of his double-duty drum backing for The Children’s Hour as they toured as openers for Zwan.
It was SOS JFK, released on CD by Minty Fresh in 2003 (and reissued on LP by Fire in 2016) that landed The Children’s Hour that plum gig. It was a terrific debut, placing the duo of Foster and Bar on the outskirts of the New Weird America, though it’s worth underscoring that there’s nothing especially freaky about SOS JFK’s folky orientation. Instead, the record establishes and sustains a high level of beauty.
Their moniker comes not from the 1934 Lillian Helman play The Children’s Hour or its 1961 William Wyler film adaptation, but the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem that was first published in 1860. The inspiration jibes well with the out of time quality that heightens the distinctiveness of Foster’s work. The characteristic of being spiritually aligned with earlier eras rather than the present truly flourishes in her later output but does have roots in SOS JFK.
Interestingly, Andy Bar came to The Children’s Hour with prior experience alongside Foster in a rock band named Golden Egg. Otherwise, he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. With the exception of a track on the 2006 Bastet Records benefit CD So Much Fire to Roast Human Flesh (Bastet being the label arm of the much missed giveaway periodical Arthur) Bar apparently hasn’t recorded since. Which is a shame as his playing on SOS JFK is quite impressive.
Bar’s talent extends to Going Home in tandem with Foster’s guitar as Pajo’s contribution adjusts The Children’s Hour’s model, but only somewhat. Drums are present on SOS JFK, guest contributed by Chicago guy Tim Daisy, but they aren’t a constant. Foster and Bar absorb this shift and run with it. Going Home’s opener “Leader Soldier” is tangibly more rock inclined, and with a discerning psych aura, plus bursts of instrumental heaviness and Forster’s powerhouse pipes soaring forth (she notably dropped out of opera school prior to making an impact in the u-ground/ indie scene).
“Dance With Me,” an up-tempo jangle strummer spiked with Foster’s sharp lead guitar line, deepened by a vocal duet with Bar and lent weight by Pajo’s subway platform busker drumming, is a significant departure, landing halfway between a neo-hippie coffeehouse and Violent Femmes-inspired Alternative Rock. It feels very 1990 to me, and that’s not a bad thing.
“Bright Lights” slows the strum and highlights Foster’s adeptness with a fairly contemporary strain of guitar pop. “Rainbow” scales back the pace even more as the pop takes on a ’60 feel. There’s a hint of Bacharach in the choruses courtesy of Foster along with insinuated Bossa nova roots that eventually get eradicated by the raw edge of the guitar.
The ’60s sophisto pop atmosphere extends to “Adoption Day.” Along with the prior track, a quietness emerges that’s reminiscent of The Children’s Hour’s debut. In its initial moments “Anna” extends this scenario, but the intensity gradually builds. The dynamic range is impressive across Going Home and in “Wyoming” in particular, the track shifting between acoustic-based jazz-pop prettiness and brief eruptions of loud rock heaviness in a manner that’s wholly lacking in staleness.
It’s important to note this heaviness isn’t absent from SOS JFK and in fact gets carried over in the title track here, the song closing both albums in different (but structurally very similar) versions. It’s one of four re-recordings of compositions from the debut, making Going Home more a polished resurrection of an unfinished work and documentation of the live band with Pajo than a proper second LP. It’s still a satisfying and often striking addition to Foster’s and Pajo’s bodies of work and to the succinct discography of The Children’s Hour.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
