ANGELICA ROCKNE "The Rose Society" (Fluff and Gravy)
Add Date: 5/2/2023
Release Date: 5/5/2023
FCC: Clean
Focus Tracks: Crystalline, The Rose Society, Age of the Voyeur, White Cadillac
Formats: Americana, Non-Commercial AAA, Folk
RIYL: Kassi Valazza, Hurray For The Riff Raff
Angelica’s forthcoming album, The Rose Society, is due out on 5/5/23. The first single, “Age of the Voyeur” was featured on UNCUT Magazine’s cover mount CD, Sounds Of The New West, earlier this year.
The title track “The Rose Society” will be released on April 5, and begins with all instruments reinforcing one melodic line. For a moment, one might be fooled by this song's simplicity, until we arrive at the chorus and 1970’s choir-like vocals backing Rockne as she belts out “Pray for the light that we could never shine.” Angelica describes the track as "The Rose Society is that place you return to for respite. An unexpected sanctuary found behind eroding city streets, and when you arrive you kind of collapse because you can. This tune also pays homage to the parts of ourselves that were never seen, or could never fully come into the light. Healing can take place here with the gentle power of the Rose and with that a deeper sense of embodiment in our own truth."
The album is Rockne’s sophomore effort, and finds her refining her songwriting and arrangements to deliver a set of songs that ride the line between ethereal folk and country.The album was self-produced, with Oz Fritz at the helm. The band referenced everything from Ethiopian jazz to Stravinsky, back to folk standards and iconic rock like Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats. The arrangements have a fluidity to them, the music lives comfortably within the spaciousness - on top of a desert mesa or pastoral lands untarnished by man. Recorded in Nevada City, California in June, 2021, Rockne continued to sculpt the material for eight more months before developing string arrangements with Scott McDowell, Graham Patzner, and Lewis Patzner at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco.
LEARN MORE ABOUT ANGELICA ROCKNE
Now, sitting amongst the orchards of Corralitos, California, Angelica Rockne reflects on the recent past. Her forthcoming album, The Rose Society, has been in a process of distillation for five years now. Rockne called upon longtime collaborators Jason Cirimele on guitar and bass, Cody Rhodes on drums and percussion, and a new friend, Patrick McGee, on piano and organ. “It sounds like a lifetime, but really it’s been equally ephemeral as it has been eternal.” Back in 2017, Rockne’s debut, Queen of San Antonio, was immediately labeled “cosmic country.” It served as an ode to a town, a group of ride-or-die friends, and the 1970’s lifestyle they were living. After moving every few years as a child and young adult, she explored the then-revelatory concept of sticking around.
The Rose Society drops the confines of cosmic country, the arrangements are wholeheartedly devoted to the song.“Age of the Voyeur” opens the album, as piano and acoustic guitar mimic each other and Rockne begins, “I miss you when you were a mystery.” Her voice is striking in its willingness to be exposed, naked, yet there is a strength that comes through that almost feels learned, like how we learn to navigate chaos. Nevertheless, what is underlying and constant throughout is an exquisite tenderness. Rockne alludes to her time in Southern California, “Before the city, the angels were free, to serenade the illusory.” “In 2019 everything came to a head,” Rockne recalls. “I had just moved to LA from Oakland and I was intoxicated by the city.” She played all the local haunts in Echo Park and Silverlake with a revolving band of players. “My interests were suddenly hedonistic, until it all felt too fake. What I was once so allured by began to repel me.” Within a short eight months Rockne felt implored to walk away. “This record illustrates a polarity, disillusionment on the one hand, fulfillment on the other”.
The Rose Society will be released on May 5, 20203 via Fluff and Gravy Records in North America, and Loose Music in Europe.