Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2
196 Allen St. between Houston & Stanton Sts.
Wednesday, August 3, 9:00
212-477-4155
www.myspace.com/annirossi
www.rockwoodmusichall.com
Classically trained violist Anni Rossi, who has moved from Minnesota to Chicago to East Wiliamsburg on her musical and geographical journey, goes less experimental on her new album, Heavy Meadow (3 Syllables, August 9, 2011). The follow-up to 2009’s Steve Albini-produced Rockwell, the disc consists of eleven playful, subtle synth-based electropop tunes with creative lyrics that range from the personal to the abstract, recorded with composer-drummer Devin Maxwell. “You’re my greatest fantasy / Won’t you take me for ice cream / Instead you ate alone / You got a smudge on your mouth,” Rossi sings on the opening track, continuing, “Play it cool / Play it cool / Down in Candyland / No one is a fool / Love’s the only rule.” Guitars begin and end “Texan Plains,” with multiple melody shifts in the middle; “Why are you leaving home? / I hope it’s not for me,” she argues. The new album also features such potentially damaging, violent songs as “Crushing Limbs,” “Hatchet,” “Sandstorm,” “Switchblade,” and “The Fight” before ending with the only somewhat more comforting “The Safety of Objects.” Over the course of her career, which has also included the EPs Scandia, My Grandmother Was a Church Organist, and Afton, Rossi has covered such songs as Radiohead’s “Creep,” Otis Redding’s “These Arms of Mine,” the Cure’s “In Between Days,” and Aaliyah’s “Are U That Somebody?” while recently citing Beyonce, Jay Z, Elastica, and Depeche Mode as influences, so you never know quite what to expect from the new Brooklynite, who recently peed in a plastic bag filled with birdseed. (Check her blog if you need to know the full story.) Rossi will be playing Stage Two at Rockwood Music Hall on Wednesday night at 9:00, preceded by Todd Alsup (7:00) and Peter Bradley Adams (8:00) and followed by Ravens and Chimes (10:00) and Xylopholks (11:00).