Rosali’s “Rewind” is one of the most anthemic and heartfelt love songs of the year. It culminates with a wide-open Rosali, singing from her chest, “I love you, and I know you love me too.” When I connect with her on the phone, she told me, “I wrote that about my dog.” Of course. Who could be so deserving?
In college, Rosali went to a liberal arts school in Minnesota to study environmental science. Once it became all lab work, like so many of us, she turned to the humanities. The last couple years she found herself bouncing from Philly to her family’s home of Michigan, then priced out of Philly post-COVID. A friend in North Carolina called Rosali and she drove through Appalachia and found her environmental science roots, walking the Eno River with her husky and finding inspiration for her new album, Bite Down.
Adding to the warm and inviting Big Thief-meets-Stevie Nicks tone of the record is the backing band work from Dave Nance & Mowed Sound. In the recording of this LP, to get the vibe, the instrumentalists all faced each other in the studio and recorded live. On “Hills on Fire,” Jim Schroeder’s guitar work is explorative and free, working within the rhythm of the rest of the band. “That whole song is completely tracked live. The guitar parts happened in the moment,” said Rosali. “That was just the second take and we just knew that was it. Jim said there was a part he wanted to fix, but I was like, ‘Absolutely not. That’s the one.'”
Sometimes while recording the band would really allow themselves to wander around in order to find the groove. For the title track “Bite Down” they tracked it for 13 minutes, looping and repeating the parts until they found the groove where they were settled in. “That song had that feeling that it has been playing forever and it’s going to continue forever.” Partially, it’s true.
Lyrically, there are many acts of contrition on Bite Down. Rosali chooses to do the very difficult act of admitting guilt in some of the relationships that she’s been in and forgives partners who may have been to blame in order to see the positive influence of every relationship. “If I wounded you / I can be hellish and awful, too / Anger built in my youth / Never learned how to soothe,” she sings on “Hills on Fire.” She told me, “A lot of this record comes from a place of growth, change and healing. Growing and healing is being able to admit those things and not viewing others mistakes so harshly because I am the same.”
The album ends on a prayer. The song is “May It Be On Offer,” which is directed to an unidentified “it.” Rosali explains, “‘It’ is that divine connection to your creativity.” While writing it she was struggling with the move, having to reconnect to a place and its people, being disconnected from other people, isolation and creativity.
“I was sitting down and started just playing those chords back and forth and making an offer to life, love, God, whatever you want to call it. To wherever songs and ideas come from. I was letting it know that I am open, ready to receive it. I stopped drinking between the last record and this one and I had a lot of upheaval. I have that line in there saying I’m in the kitchen, making offerings for life. It’s like preparing food and just trying to find that groundedness and reverence for life and having hope.” The artist continues, “When I am open to the small ways of being open to nature, conversations with friends, and little things in life, that’s where the seeds start that grow into greater stories and connection.”
Rosali is playing at The Blue Room in Nashville on Wednesday, July 24.