***"North Carolina based singer/songwriter Rosali Middleman has spent the last decade using her voice and guitar to construct tunes built upon the spectrum between joy and pain—deeply personal lyrics, profound vocals, and striking, heady guitar synchronizing as a perfect pair to deliver a very welcome and fresh perspective on folk rock and roll music. On this newest collection of tunes, Variable Happiness, under the moniker Edsel Axle, her voice takes a winter hibernation to showcase the prodigious slow burn thump of her solo electric guitar playing. While this musical pivot may be a risk to some, the worlds of wilderness created within the music are easily navigated with clarity. Recorded directly to a four-track cassette rig in the comfort of her own home—each chord struck exhales from the gear and onto magnetic tape, finding its true north, and throwing sand on the bonfire before it burns the foundation. First thought/best thought improvisations naturally trickling down and turning puddles into expansive streams of sound..."—Ryley Walker "Another beautiful solo-guitar excursion from Rosali Middleman, filled with meditative songs that circle and eddy like leaves on the wind or a mountain stream in springtime. Her guitar playing has a raw, elemental power that is simultaneously soothing and invigorating, hypnotic and transportive."—Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips / Moon Duo / Rose City Band)
LP $36.45
09/15/2023