Local Review: Gina French – Of Rapture

Gina French
Of Rapture

Gina French = Emmylou Harris + Robert Johnson + Dead Can Dance

Gina French has more soul than Al Green french-kissing Tina Turner. She is the only folk artist I know that takes the sexiest, dirtiest parts of the blues, rock and alt-country and mixes it with Middle Eastern scale progressions. She then lathers everything over with hedonistic amounts of Bill Frost slide guitar, growly, yowly vocals that wail and zing like the whine of cupid’s deadly arrows, transcendent chord changes and heart-of-darkness acoustic strumming. Zithery Indian sounds color up “Of Rapture” and “Rings True,” and old-time country flavors give “Spring’s Angel” a nostalgically bittersweet edge. www.ginafrench.net