Alex Rose - Arcadian Pages (2017)

Texas, Arcadian Pages feels like everywhere and nowhere all at once. The music is spacious and restrained, conjuring images of nameless strangers and long stretches of highway viewed from behind a dirty windshield. Gauzy electric guitars provide the backdrop, while sparse percussion and romantic swells of viola help propel each story along. Rose sings these songs like closely held secrets, lacing them with breath, texture, and a graceful fluency. In them, she reveals evocative details about fleeting moments and quiet echoes of characters only half-known. Like “Ty,” an enigmatic cowboy who’s both an object of affection and a figment of the imagination. Or “Howling Wolves,” where stories of youthful abandon move across moonlit streets and empty truck beds. On “Ponderosa Pines,” she sets a rally cry against indifference beneath the luminous North Dakota skyline. And together, these tales beautifully capture and crystallize not-so-distant memories into something tangible.