It’s not pejorative to call Anni Rossi the next great freaky art
chick. Like PJ Harvey, Ms. Rossi sat down to record her sophomore
effort (re-imagining most of her EP Afton) with producer Steve
Albini, and in doing so discovers untapped dimensions only hinted at by
her early work.
However, Rockwell doesn’t have the raw, bluesy angst of
Harvey’s Rid of Me. Where that album merely toyed with string
sections, Rossi’s viola wholly drives Rockwell. The album
aesthetically falls much closer to Björk, at least in terms of her
pixie-ish rasp, replete with crackling falsettos and strange a cappella
sound effects.
But, really, Rockwell is an album that stands strongly on the
merits of its own ingenuity. The album’s overall tone is satirical,
filled with sly paeans to nature that also critique massification:
“Ecology” is a postmodern pastoral in which “Pretty bears have lost
their checkbooks”; “Glaciers” links “hills and ice and snow and land
and dirt” with “freezer boxes”; “Machine” warns of “landscapes …
freez(ing) us over” while our body parts are commodified by “impulses
from the machine.”
“Venice” and “Living in Danger” are the songs that will probably
stick with you most after the album is over. “Deer Hunting Camp 17” may
be the most frustrating, where Rossi’s quirkiness feels unedited. But
the rest of the album is so delightful in its oddness and sweet in its
wordplay that we can easily forgive Rossi her excesses. Go get your
hands on Rockwell, stat.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.