Hypnotic and beguiling, Alessandra Rose’s voice dips and dives as effortlessly as swallows over new mown fields. 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 (out October 20), Rose has built a work of art that wraps her voice in 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 forged in the crucible of West Coast Rock & Roll. 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.

Today Rose has dropped the single coming from RODEOMOTHH. “Electric Heart.” According to Rose, the track was “written by me, for me, and everyone who has lost love. ‘Electric Heart’ is a song about the heartache of not understanding why.”

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 later the band was no more, and 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.  

Much like life itself, RODEOMOTHH is at turns fierce and tender, quiet and defiantly loud. “I hope people find themselves singing along to songs that speak to them, and that it gives them space to go inward” tells Rose. “I hope they sense the true urgency of my lyrics. Not one word or note was an afterthought. To be a good and strong mother in today’s society you have to fight for it, all of it. This record is the last ten years of my life, poured into song.”

Photo Courtesy: Aloha Burn