Alex Henry Foster Reveals 'Calling Out!' From 'The Fragile Beauty (Of New Morning Hopes)'
Montreal-based experimental rock artist, writer, social worker and human rights advocate Alex Henry Foster revealed 'Calling Out!' from his upcoming album The Fragile Beauty (Of New Morning Hopes) out October 23.
An industrial-sounding, frenetic sea of distortion and desperation, the song paints a sonic canvas of chaotic surroundings and the longing to release and surrender to something new.
Foster describes the song as an entanglement of emotional layers. In one sense, it’s a reaction to “a social stream collectivizing our individual frustration and powerlessness.” In a polarized society of black or white, “‘Calling Out!’ is about breaking that monochromatic view of ourselves and the world we live in.” On another level, “Calling Out!” is something instinctive throughout our lives that calls us to shed the cacophony, a “conscious awakening that keeps arising throughout our journey and calls us to get out of our self-imposed affective blur.” Against the chaotic soundscape, the answer is simplistic: “freedom only involves us letting go.”
Yet the most personal take on the song, possibly the impetus for “Calling Out!,” is the physical and mental healing process Foster endured after emergency heart surgery and subsequent cardiac grafts, during which he died several times and which left him “impaired for years with the loss of a large span of memories and souvenirs, the inability to speak, and the incapacity to write, read, and articulate ideas.” A depression set in. He says, “The ‘call out’ in that case came from people’s affection and their healing love, one that led me from being frozen to awakened and finally risen, a process that could only take place once I had decided to embrace who I had become and to accept the new realm of reality it implied.” It was the process of “transforming a bleak emotional fatalism into a beaming resurgence.”
Following the release of The Fragile Beauty (of New Morning Hopes), Foster will headline Festival Taragalte, a nomadic music and culture festival held annually in the sand dunes of M'Hamihd El Ghizlane in Morocco showcasing music, poetry, and arts on October 31. His historic performance marks the first time an artist from outside Africa has been included on the lineup.
In November, Foster will tour throughout Morocco and a special date in his hometown of Montreal before returning to Europe as part of his “Defying Gravity” tour. Moroccan dates begin on November 8 following the festival, and the tour extends through December 12 in Paris with stops throughout Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and The Netherlands.
