ROSALi - NO MEDiUM

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

May 19, 2021

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

Even in our seeming acceptance of female artists as drivers and impactful creatives in our kind of music, we often celebrate them for the beauty of their work. We grant them more conservative lanes and confine them to descriptors we wouldn't apply to their male counterparts. We are not as quick to recognize them for the challenge or the more abrasive elements in their sound. 

There is wonderful noise being created on Rosali's third record, No Medium (Spinster), the spark and sputter of electric guitar, the peal and cry of pedal steel. From Philadelphia, Rosali Middleman retreated to the solitude of a South Carolina farm to write and workshop the ten songs that make up her new collection. Questioned about the inspiration behind the sessions, she cited the country-rock of early 70s Iain Matthews and Gene Clark's No Other, alongside Dylan's Desire and Bowie's avant-pop masterpiece Hunky Dory. The noise, the hush, the expression and the isolation. No Medium defines itself in the tension between these contradictions. 

A guitarist in her own right for far louder bands like Long Hots, Rosali is joined here by guitarist David Nance and members of his band, as well as musicians associated with Simon Joyner and Conor Oberst. Set to tape in just ten days, a raw garage spirit pervades the recordings. On "If Not For Now", Middleman shares: Had some visions / Pretty pictures, pretty dreams / Got twisted along the way. A pair of electric guitars play off one another loosely, an organ adding brighter colors to the mix until one of the guitars departs for a wild, barbed solo that stabs through the remainder of the song. 

It's not the sort of noise you might expect to hear based solely on the album's jacket where the artist rests her hand on the neck of a horse, a perfect blue pond in the background against an almost fluorescently green countryside. Buzzsaw guitars shred through "Bones", even as Rosali suggests withdrawal amidst the openness: Through the darkness of the field / I walk through without yielding / To the rest of the feelings / I'm carrying. There's nothing rural about the immediate guitar barrage that introduces "Pour Over Ice". The intuitive guitar alchemy of Middleman and Nance largely defines No Medium, and dictates its untamed energy. 

Rosali's 2016 solo debut Out of Love favored more mannered folk, and '18's Trouble Anyway demonstrated a bolder approach that flirted with the fringes of country. Those more pastoral elements aren't abandoned here, as evidenced in the unhurried, Lucinda Williams-esque "All This Lightning". Pedal steel joins both acoustic and electric strings on one of the project's genuinely sensual passages: I wanna wrap my legs around your neck / Finding pleasure in our recklessness. Banjo finds a place in the mix for "Mouth": Here is a mouth saying your name / Come in closer and I'll say it again. 

There's a cool remove to Rosali's vocal delivery, a frankness that recalls Aimee Mann or Beth Orton. This lower-register quality suggests an interiority to her lyrical narrative. Even as she addresses relationships or curses another to fuck off with your fear, we spend most of No Medium in the confines of the writer's head, privy to her asides and interior dialog. Rosali recalls Amy Boone and the Delines on "Your Shadow", a late-night memorial about a young friend's passing were she catches a glimmer of hope: If you stare into darkness / Soon you'll be seeing / The light start to break. Acoustic with waves of feedback, "Tender Heart" closes the album on a moment of clarity. It's a striking close to a collection that finds beauty in noise, that follows Rosali's sometimes challenging vision and mines rewards for joining the journey into darker times. Rosali sings: And in time we'd shower our friends / With thanks and forgiveness / We'd make our amends / I don't mind spending my time / Like this. 

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This week brought a veritable ton of new releases, as well as a wealth of stuff added to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster. So please don't tell me there's no good music lately. It's just a matter of our commitment to being open to new sounds. We spilled some digital ink in praise of Country Westerns' full-length debut last May. The alt trio's follow-up, a self-titled EP, will hit shelves wherever music matters June 18 (Fat Possum). One of my own most eagerly anticipated records of the Summer, John R Miller's Depreciated makes its debut July 16 via the Rounder label. Americana/country vet Rodney Crowell returns July 23 with Triage on his own RC1 imprint. And Son Volt continue to release relevant music, more than 15 years since their debut. Expect Electro Melodier in your digital mailbox on July 30 (Transmit Sound). Likewise, Charlie Parr has set that same day to mark the appearance of his next full-length. Last of the Better Days Ahead is the artist's first foray with the Smithsonian Folkways label.