ALESSANDRA ROSE

Once in a blue moon you come across an artist that stops you in your tracks. Manette, WA's Alessandra Rose is blessed with an instrument of penetrating grace, her voice a siren song wrapped in silk and incense. Bright as a brass bell and edged with a warm glow of whiskey and woodsmoke, it is resonant, radiant, and absolutely hair-raising.

On her new LP RODEOMOTHH, Rose has built a work of expansive, beguiling, psych-tinged anthemic rock & roll. Whale-song leads howl up from the depths as rolling waves of organ crash against the rhythmic cliffside. Shimmering chords echo through distant canyons, while thundering percussion rumbles along hard-pack mountain roads. Taken as a whole, RODEOMOTHH is a masterwork. A heavyweight of a record, both intentional and exceptional is arrangement and execution, and ready to take its place in the canon of iconic recordings.

RODEOMOTHH came to the world out of undeniable artistic necessity. Rose was immersed in music from a young age, singing before she could walk. While studying on a full-ride scholarship at the Berklee College of Music summer program at seventeen, multiple instructors suggested she go out into the world and play as much as she could. “I took that advice, good or not,” laughs Rose. “In my early 20's I was the singer for Seattle rock-pop band, The Kindness Kind. I did play, nonstop.”

Eighteen months after the band was no more, Rose released her debut solo record You Are Gold. Three months post-release she was given “the most perfect news”; she was pregnant. A few years, a second child, and an EP titled Petrichor later and the world shut down. Rose found solace in her home studio, determined to write the songs that had been building in her subconscious for the past decade. “The lyrics fell out of my heart and head; the melodies would come while washing dishes after dinner and I would say ‘I HAVE TO GO WRITE THIS… Jason put the kids to bed tonight!’” Within a couple months Rose had a brace of songs ready. It was time to make a record.

RODEOMOTHH was recorded at Sputnik Sound in Nashville, TN, with Grammy-winning producer / engineer Mitch Dane (The Blind Boys of Alabama). In addition to Rose on vocals and acoustic guitar, the record features guitarist Courtlan Clement (Marc Bourssard), Kevin Whitsett (Sam Williams) on bass, drummer Paul Eckberg (Amy Grant), and Charlie Lowell (Jars of Clay) on piano and synth. It was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White).

Thematically, the secret to RODEOMOTHH is hidden in its name. “It's an anagram of motherhood” explains Rose. “Every song tells a part of my journey of being a mother.” Regardless of gender or parental status, these songs of unrestrained loving, free of consequence, speak to the soul. Indeed, the tales of falling in love and the work it takes to maintain that, of the pure joy of new life and the tearing sadness of life lost, are deeply, universally, human.