“Who in this past year did not face the reckoning of no escape, and the gentle fears of surrender? Who did not look themselves in the mirror and find new selves, some of them uglier than they knew, and some surprisingly delicate in their strength? Who in this past year did not completely, certainly, change?”
That’s Johanna Rose, setting the scene for their latest album, Lunar Eclipse. Rose knows a lot about change: following the release of a pair of solo albums in early 2020, the Milwaukee musician packed for Vermont and spent the summer building and living in a treehouse. While there, Rose—an upright bass player—picked up new instruments and composed new material. The resulting Lunar Eclipse includes the lilting opener “Loving You,” the earthy and cosmic “Dancing On The Water,” and the warm and expansive “Sweet Fool” (featuring Josh Evert on drums and Katie Lyne on backing vocals). “Shopping Cart” boasts some of Rose’s most plainly poetic lyrics to date (“Drove me to emergency care / Smoked a pack of cigarettes just waiting there,”) while closer “Vincent” wraps its confessional break-up narrative around the cowpoke strum of an acoustic guitar. It’s a fantastic record.
“This is my cosmic emotional release, my evolution, a peace offering to my inner demons, a love letter to my soul, an acknowledgment of my heart, an end to before, and a beginning for now,” Rose says. Listen to that evolution now, and see them live Saturday, May 29 at Highway Kind MKE.
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