anni rossi: rockwell

In case you didn’t know, Anni Rossi is the most exciting thing to happen to the viola in…well, forever. Dumpier and lower in range than its cousin the violin, the viola is like the back-up singer that knows she has better tone than that screechy old Beyoncé, but ain’t as flashy. With Rockwell, Rossi sets the instrument free, dishing up punchy pizzicato over syncopated rhythms, with the occasional howling run of strings. Ladies and gents, the Devil may be close to giving up the fiddle.

Granted, you will likely have heard quite a bit of Rockwell before. ‘Machine’, ‘Venice’, ‘Ecology’, ‘The West Coast’ and ‘Wheelpusher’ all make it over from the Afton EP and form the central tracks on the new album, but Rossi has worked well with producer Steve Albini to clean up the tracks and pick up the pace, making them sparse and wonderful, like intricate machines. Albini has also, it seems, encouraged Rossi to let go of her tendency towards screeches and yelps, which should put to rest those pesky comparisons with Joanna Newsom.

‘Ecology’, in particular, has come the furthest, and tends to overshadow opener ‘Machine’. It’s a poppy, driving track that fills out the usual empty spaces in Rossi’s music with the addition of ’70s keyboards. Lyrically, it’s a bizarre little meditation on the life-cycle of the butterfly – you could almost imagine it appearing on 1970s children’s education TV segment ‘The Electric Company’ with helpful charts and live footage – but Rossi manages to haul it back to the right side of kitsch…just. Elsewhere it’s all about that beautifully warm and high voice contrasting with the viola and railing against sudden tempo changes.

‘The West Coast’ is even more mournful than in previous versions, while ‘Deer Hunting Camp 17′ is the most welcome of the new additions, taking the form of a creepy ditty dedicated to a teacher. You’ll find yourself singing, “That’ll be all, Mr Hunt” at just about every opportunity, earning alarmed looks from strangers everywhere. Oddly, this most fascinating of pieces is placed right next to ‘Living In Danger’, the Ace Of Base cover that label 4AD are bigging up. It’s cute, sure, but once your brain catches up with your ears it becomes more and more of a gimmick.

‘Glaciers’ is probably the least successful of the new additions. It’s a bit forgettable, a bit too obvious: “This is a song about glaciers,” runs the opening line. Well, it’s good we got that cleared up straight away. Fortunately, it fades into the magnificent ‘Wheelpusher’. Nowhere else does Rossi achieve such beautiful symmetry between her lyrics and her music. She croons: “To be a beekeeper in the Himalayas,” and you can just feel that delicate mountain air, as well as the absurdity of the concept. ‘Air Is Nothing’ rounds up proceedings, and is a fairly traditionally structured ballad, saved by beautiful execution.

So, it seems that 4AD is on to a winner with Anni Rossi. Not unexpected, really – they’ve got the most intelligently selected and presented roster in the industry. About the best compliment you can give to Rossi is that she really does fit there. At 23, she’s also got a whole lot of room for development. We’ll see just how far she can take that viola of hers. Perhaps to hell and back. Let’s pray, though, that she gives up on looking like a lost character from ‘Twin Peaks’ in her album artwork. It’s so disconcertingly creepy that you’ll want to hide the cover to Rockwell safely out of view, even while listening to it all of the time.

[4AD; February 9, 2009]

Written by: Scott Sinclair

Tags: anni rossi, rockwell

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 pm and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.