Foundling - Artemisia - 1LP

“Artemisia by Foundling, is an answer to a deep place of crisis, a response made of gentleness meant to hear and echo, soften the shadows and calm aching hearts.”

‘Artemisia’ is the new album from Foundling, the project of Canadian-born, Berlin-based vocalist, bassist and harpist Erin Lang. Artemisia unfurls from the final moment of their previous album ‘Equilibria’ whose serene tropical nights culminate with a gently imploring request to ‘believe for a while”. Artemisia begins in this delicate place, weaving a serene fantasy landscape over a shadowy underworld. It marks a departure for Foundling, being primarily instrumental, with two spoken word pieces, the album moves into a more experimental, ambient and improvised realm.

Foundling’s leader, Erin Lang came to the harp in recent years and in the winter of 2024 felt something more like a need than a desire to turn all her focus to the instrument and explore another musical landscape with it. The harp felt both exciting and new but also deeply familiar, and the concentration needed to produce new music with an instrument that the hands are just getting to know was an integral part of Artemisia’s intensity and formation.

‘It (Artemisia) was made at a moment when I deeply needed to completely lose myself into something. The very nature of the harp and all the fantasy worlds of my upbringing that had been defined by its sound, I found both comforting and escapist. I cocooned myself in a very focused healing place transforming the realities of the outside into the world of Artemisia. It’s made as a gentle and soothing balm for troubled hearts.”

The plant Artemisia is known for its healing properties and in a magical realm is a lunar herb deeply connected with dreaming and the continuous renewal that is found in the cycles of being. Erin and Samuel Hall (percussion) shared an intimate connection to the album as it became an expression of their relationship as partners coming undone, and the last threads binding them. The album was a place where Erin and Samuel could still be together and make something in one of their fundamental places of connection, without words or the complications of the outside world.

With the harp at the album’s core Peter Hanson (saxophone, flute) created the playful and intertwingling flute parts that sometimes support and sometimes lead the melodies with their often-birdlike voices. David Georgos (synths, programming) brings the shimmering synth pads and processing, sending sections through granular synthesisers and broadening the album’s views and horizons. Along with Samuel, Constantine Karlis added percussion with its implied rhythms keeping the spirit of the record floating rather than attaching it to seconds or minutes passing.

Artemisia is for knowing the dark places, honoring connections that are as deep as roots or fine as threads and moving towards healing like moths to the light. 

1. Amanita 

2. Flamunlina 

3. Europa 

4. Artemisa

5. Deconica 

6. Safe With You