Arrica Rose again

I posted about this really excellent record, Arrica Rose and the Dot Dot Dots' Let Alone Sea a week or two ago, thinking that I probably wouldn't have the chance to review it. and then things changed, and I was, indeed, reviewing it for Blurt, so here it is. Nine stars, holy shit, I think I only gave it eight and Fred bumped it up.

Arrica Rose and the …s
Let Alone Sea
www.arricarose.com


Warm, natural, casually excellent, the LA songwriter Arrica Rose's third full-length feels as soft and worn-in as an old tee-shirt the first time through. Let Alone Sea is the kind of record that you feel instantly familiar with, as if you'd put it on late at night all your life, whenever you needed to get back to basics or set your head straight.


Rose's dusky alto is sure and true, fluttering a little at the edges, as she sings wisely, knowingly, about sailing away or bending a recalcitrant world to one's will. There's an Americana ease to these melodies, a bit of twang and blues slipped into their clean pop contours, though all that is layered over with a dreamy bit of gauze. When Rose murmurs ruefully that "everybody will burn," in opener "Everybody," her voice is a bittersweet wisp of smoke itself, though surrounded by luminous textures of 4AD-style alt-rock in the arrangements.

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Arrica Rose's Let Alone Sea

Another surprise from a record that looks like dime-a-dozen, standard-issue female-centric songwriter pop, but actually stands a good head or two taller than the competition. Arrica has a lovely, slightly hoarse soprano, full of shadow and nuance, touched at the edges with blues. Her songs are world-weary beauties, a sigh and a shrug built into airy melodies...and her band, the dot dot dots (as in Arrica Rose and the ...) is quite good, too, in a casual, natural way. There are quite a few comparisons floating around for Arrica's voice, but I'm thinking Cyndi Lauper for the rasp, Lisa Germano for the floating clarity.

Here's the video of Arrica's oddball mash-up of the first-ever song played on MTV plus Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World." (This is, BTW, probably the weakest song on the album, but that's what she's leading with.)


I like "If the World Won't Bend," better, don't you?


And, just for fun, the Buggles' version of "Video Killed the Radio Star"