Rosali is the solo incarnation of Philadelphia-based musician Rosali Middleman. Through songwriting and performances, Rosali shares resonant emotions and the authenticity of being, unveiling herself to connect with broad audiences. Rosali’s songwriting realizes life as rich and alluring melodies within the framework of traditional popular songwriting. Her 2016 debut album, Out of Love (Siltbreeze), shimmers with open expression. The ten songs on Out of Love weave intimate words, strong melodic and rhythmic structures, and mellifluous singing while hanging onto the free nature of the songs’ origins. Her music is all at once ethereal, familiar, unearthing, and expansive. Rosali’s full band, Rosali & the Middlemen, is a natural expansion of her psychedelic and enveloping sound. Out of Love was one of Uncut Magazine’s top 100 records of 2016, and Magnet Magazine hailed the debut as essential new music.

Rosali’s forthcoming album, Trouble Anyway, out on June 8 via Spinster Sounds, expands her tonal register. With amplified purpose, Rosali furthers her explorative singing into renewed maturity. Sharing openly on love, power, aging, suffering, confusion, self-doubt and anger, the collection of songs on Trouble Anyway embody the universality of human nature. A vulnerable force, they are a woman rising and in flight.
 
Lyrical and wordless intensity, alongside intuitive musical arrangements, make for a powerful sophomore release. With collaborations from musician friends—Nathan Bowles (Steve Gunn, Black Twig Pickers), Dan Provenzano (Writhing Squares, Purling Hiss), Mary Lattimore, Paul Sukeena (Angel Olsen, Spacin’), Charlie Hall (The War on Drugs), Mike Polizze (Purling Hiss), Mike Sobel (Oldermost), and Gretchen Lohse (Carol Cleveland Sings)—Trouble Anyway is both otherworldly and straight-forward. The collective instrumentation simultaneously accentuates Rosali’s singular sound and magnifies its orbit. Trouble Anyway was recorded and mixed by Uniform Recording’s Jeff Zeigler, who has also engineered records for The War on Drugs, Allison Crutchfield (also of Waxahatchee), and Kurt Vile, among others.

You can also see Rosali as guitarist for Philadelphia trio, Long Hots.

Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating.


Whether insisted upon or lovingly squelched, “candor” marks the pervasive theme on Be Frank, Furness—the swift successor to last year’s acclaimed The Hale & Hearty LP (produced by Chet Delcampo). This go-round Heyward has captured an even more honest and relaxed vibe with the help of co-producer Ben Riesman (Le Fits, Bart Davenport) and mixing engineer Quentin Stoltzfus (Mazarin/Light Heat, The Walkmen, Lilys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah). Many of the tracks were rendered to tape with a full band in a cavernous trolley repair depot that was being transformed into a recording studio right under Howkins’ feet—imparting palpable warmth, breadth and unpredictability into the sessions that ultimately became Furness.

While most of the central thematic figures on The Hale & Hearty were too far gone—beautiful but broken, these folks still have a chance and in some cases get a free pass—if for one night only—like the couple in “Sweet Tea Oleander.” It’s a slippery ballad where the “whole night’s a pardon from guilt now departed” and a newly sprung couple sip from a questionable brew just to have “anything to break up this candor.” It's a sweet but toxic mixture of Nathaniel Hawthorne meets Cool Hand Luke.

In the title track, Heyward cleverly casts the famed Philadelphia architect Frank Furness into the role of his butler and demands verity (and clarity) when he poses the question—“how could I get so mashed by a neutral spirit’s glass and not come out straight bitters?” The song portrays a familiar tension between the inner-city and the privileged outskirts where Furness may hold both the keys to reconciliation and your parent’s liquor cabinet—“I should have quit this Main Line mess. They were first world problems, yes. Turned into first world debt.”

Speaking of family, Heyward takes his name from his five-times grandfather Thomas Heyward (dubbed “The Singing Signer”), founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence. On “Brite Kites,” Howkins takes his fascination with family history and familial connections in a new direction, setting to music a poem written by his mother. Layers of history combine to speak through one voice as perspectives collide and push thoughts from long ago into the present.

Heyward first garnered attention in the early 2000s as the lead guitarist for The Trouble With Sweeney, with releases that included the widely praised I Know You Destroy and Fishtown Briefcase—both records landed on Rollingstone.com's Editor's Top Picks of the Year.

Howkins is also a founding member of The Silver Ages, the critically acclaimed choral group featuring singers from a wide array of Philadelphia-based bands, including David Hartley (Nightlands, The War on Drugs, BC Camplight), Charlie Hall (Jens Lekman, The War on Drugs, The Lindsey Buckingham Appreciation Society), Brandon Beaver (Buried Beds, Nightlands), Zach Miller (Dr. Dog) and Dan Matz (Windsor for the Derby, Birdwatcher). 

Though dark themes creep in as many of the songs' characters struggle and face the hardships of life, ultimately the album is defined by Heyward's embrace of the playful and celebratory. With melodies that pull you in (such as the buoyant album opener, “Nogales”) and lyrics that evoke feelings and situations both specific and universal ("Then ran your first love Billy / All of ours really," Heyward sings in the Stacker Lee-infused “Praline Country”).

Paradise of Bachelors is a Record Label, Soundsystem, and Archive located in the North Carolina Piedmont and in the subluminal aether. We are dedicated to documenting, curating, and releasing under-recognized musics of the American vernacular, with an emphasis on the South, broadly defined. 

Paradise of Bachelors is available for licensing, disc-jockeying engagements, music supervision, folklife consultation, research and writing. We cheerily accept recordings, visual media, curatorial proposals, tips, comments, invitations to DJ, artist inquiries, research queries, recipes, and miscellaneous correspondence. 

info@paradiseofbachelors.com

PO Box 1402
Carrboro, NC 27510

Robbie Bennett is following