ROSE POLENZANI

Release Date: June 5, 2001
Label: Daemon Records
Produced by David Goodrich and Rose Polenzani
Recorded and Mixed by Francisco Lugo
Musicians:
Rose Polenzani on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, and keys.
David Goodrich on Lead guitars, electric mandolin, and keys.
Mike Piehl on the drums,
Lou Ulrich on the bass.
Lorna Hunt on harmony vocals and guitar.

After 5 years of home recordings, four-tracks, 8-tracks, and living room sessions, Rose Polenzani has released her first full-length studio recording with a band, Rose Polenzani (self-titled), on Daemon Records.

In August of 2000 Rose went into Artist Workshop studio in Boston with her accompanist of 2 years, David Goodrich. The studio, a massive old meat-packing tzar's house in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, was gutted and wired in the last five years by it's sole tenant, recordist and musician Francisco Lugo. Goodrich brought in his longtime collaborators Mike Piehl on Drums and Lou Ulrich on Bass. In one rehearsal, the songs that had long rocked out in Rose's head were finally coming to life.

"Fell" [track 1] starts this album with a Lucinda Williams kick, and a slide guitar solo as catchy as the chorus. You'll hear the vocal power of PJ Harvey in "The Flood" [Track 4] and "Polliwog's Lament" [track 8], the raw musicality of Edie Brickell on "Thom II" [Track 10] and "Sacramento Avenue" [Track 6], and the vocal intimacy of Tori Amos in "Mary Lee" [Track 5] and "Bad Dreams" [Track 3]. However, none of that could prepare you for the punk fun of "Orange Crush," a song that wields the Angel Gabriel's man-crushing power, and comes and goes at a screaming pace.

While this album features Rose's first band material, it is not without some signature acoustic moments, and almost all of the tracks are acoustic guitar-driven, even when the guitar is sent through a distortion pedal and an amp, as on "Polliwog's Lament."

These songs will trap you in the experience of the narrator. Judgement, rejection, limitations, and frustrations are all a part of this collection of songs, culled from 5 years of writing. The oldest, a torched, roomy dirge called "Whatever Remains" [Track 2] clutches at a destructive love affair ("How I am devoted, how I am callen to wait on your answer, even as I am fallen."). And the most recent, "The Llama," [Track 7] is an attempt to trust the same life that does it's best to knock you around, throw you, and make you give in ("Carry me away, but CARRY ME!"). The most playful of the 10 tracks, "the Llama" features an unpredictable Fender Rhodes solo by Rose and a prepared piano track by David Goodrich.

Rose Polenzani was released on Daemon Records on June 5, 2001.

Track Listing

ANYBODY

Release date: Fall 1999
Label: Daemon Records
Musicians:
Rose Polenzani: Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Geoff Benge: Mixing and Mandolin on "Or"
Amy Ray and Emily Saliers: Harmony Vocals on "Or"
Andrew Bird: Violin on "Molly's Lily" and "Abalin"
Steve Rashid engineered "Olga's Birthday," "Omen," and "Shake Through to Ugly
Nils St. Cyr recorded and mixed "Molly's Lily.

Anybody was released in early fall of 1999 on Daemon Records. A compilation of early home and studio recordings originating between 1995 and 1998, and including some tracks from the Dragersville album, it is a sort of "Debut #2". The eleven songs were collected by Rose and Daemon Records President Amy Ray. Anybody realizes Rose's developing voice.

This album features the Indigo Girls singing harmony on "Or", Andrew Bird (of "Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire" and "the Squirrel Nut Zippers") playing Violin on "Abalin" and "Molly's Lily", and Geoff Benge playing mandolin on "Or", but many of the songs are documented with Rose on guitar and voice alone. Tracks 1,5 and 6 were recorded by Steve Rashid at Woodside Avenue Productions, Evanston, IL, in january of 1997. Track 2 was recorded by Nils St. Cyr at Lew Blum Midway Studios in Chicago IL. Tracks 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 11 were home recordings, done in various ways. Track 10 was done at the ACM Chicago Semester in the Arts program in the spring of 1995. The album was mastered at Mastermix in Nashville, TN.

Download songs from this album in the listening room.

Track List

Reviews

"In their psychic intensity, Polenzani's compositions sometimes evoke the spirit of the late Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico, albeit without that singer's icy aloofness. Indeed, Polenzani's breathy, tremulous voice has a beckoning power more akin to that of a child ghost in a graveyard"
REQUEST MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 1999

"The fiery rough-hewn 'Angel' (on Anybody) spews an intensity not far removed from P.J. Harvey's 4-Track Demos, while more pensive tracks like 'Omen' achieve an otherworldly quality that transcends musical categories, much like Rickie Lee Jones's early work. Anybody has me searching for Polenzani's self released 1998 debut, Dragersville."
CMJ

"Polenzani seems to wear a folkie hide, but underneath you feel the wild alternative rocker, who also pays a quiet homage to punk's liberating effects."
RAMBLES.NET, November 1999

"These [songs are] all filled with musings of dark mystery, humid fantasy, and identity crises. Just the sort of naked thoughts you'd expect to be floating richly about in the 2 a.m dim light of a hidden back bedroom."
Illinois Entertainer

"They're simply brilliantly subtle, sexy songs, full of tension of the physical, emotional, societal, spiritual and religious kinds."
Berkshire Eagle, September 1999

"Her songwriting is bold and uncompromising, with beautifully cast features and a wisdom that defies her young age. her lyrics are a brilliant blur of sexuality and social commentary, intoned with the most esoteric of voices."
Southeast Performer

DRAGERSVILLE

Released August 1998
Nils St. Cyr at Lew Blum Midway Studios was the engineer for tracks 8 and 11.
Steve Rashid at Woodside Avenue Recordings was the engineer for track 2.
Mastered by Erik Vaveris at Northwestern University.
Musicians:
Rose Polenzani: Voice and Guitar
Geoff Benge: Backing Vocals on Track one, Second and Lead Guitar, tracks 1, 8 and 9. Mandolin on track 6.
Andrew Bird: violin on tracks 8 and 11.
Jordi Kleiner: violin on track 10.
Other Contributors:
Original artwork by Jeff Krueger.
Photo by June Newbury.

Dragersville, Rose's debut album, was self-released in the summer of 1998. "The Necklace" and "Molly's Lily," no doubt Dragersville's masterpieces, were recorded by Nils St. Cyr at Lew Blum Midway Studios, built in the shell of an old-style, teller cage bank, with vaulted ceilings and marble floors. "Olga's Birthday" was recorded by Steve Rashid at Woodside Avenue in Evanston, IL, and funded by Andrew Calhoun. "Allah," "You Don't Know," "The Chalice," "Jesus Loves Me Like a Bird," and "Or" were recorded with a single stereo mic at various living spaces, and "In the Middle" was recorded on Rose's 4-track at home. This album was put together in anticipation of Rose's performances in the 1998 Lilith Fair and Newport Folk Festival, and the first pressing was done in a raw cardboard, letter-pressed package, which proved to be a limited edition (the album now appears in a jewelcase).

Track List

Reviews

"Dragersville is not so much a collection of songs as a collection of short stories. Ghost stories. Crime stories. Love stories. Polenzani has many a tale to tell and she does so in the most intimate setting."
Performing Songwriter, January 1999

"Dragersville is an affecting collection of music that intertwines both beauty and tragedy in a way that's unassuming and shockingly polite...Those abstract lines between madness and love, loneliness and passion are richly illustrated here...Rose Polenzani airs her emotive twists with a Midwestern plainspokenness, any horror stared at straight."
The Daily Herald, August 1998

"This is an intimate album...Rose’s songs are sweet and sad. Most center on people in crises of faith. The stories are involving and Rose’s delivery is urgent and committed. I find her album oddly compelling. It’s an impressive debut."
Sing Out, August 1999

ZOE ARDITO

I've known Zoe since she was born. This is our second album together, the first one being destroyed in the typical family manner (but that one had some real gems on it, let me tell you).

My mom had recorded me singing my kindergarden songs when I was little, and I thought it would be nice for Zoe to have something akin to this artifact for later on. We started there, she would sing the songs she had learned at school. But then they were exhausted, so she started making them up on the spot. The first album was almost entirely a cappella, except for one incredibly sad number about her dead grandmother ("it's raining outside, I can't go up to heaven 'cause I haven't died") which I accompanied on guitar. Whenever I accompany her, she complains a little about how my piano parts sound "sad". She wants to jump around. However, I really enjoy her darker numbers, like "rain on days".

On this album, we started out wanting to collaborate. I had purchased a sweet little yamaha synthesizer, and was enjoying making all sorts of funny sounds on it. We stuck mostly to 1-4-5 progressions to make musical transitions easier, but I found Zoe was up to just about any challenge.

I think her lyrics are incredible. She made them up as she went along, deciding on a topic based on the piano part I came up with. She's incredible.

I'd like to make this available for sale, but for now I'm just going to put it up on the net. enjoy it!