Lush, atmospheric pop with a folky, intimate edge.

11 MP3 Songs
POP: Delicate, ROCK: Folk Rock



Details:
Rosa Chance Well mainstays Vanessa Downing and Dean Taormina claim to have been in Washington D.C. band Samuel in the early '90s. After that act folded the two formed Rosa Chantswell (notice the less obscure meaning of this proto-spelling) in 1995. Then...what? Well, we're talking about a "low-pro-file-lific" band here. A rumor that two songs were recorded in 1996 surfaces, although the songs never do. Time meanders along. Meanwhile Vanessa and Dean move to Boston. She does a stint in the undocumented all-girl pop combo The Good Furies, then joins The Wicked Farleys for the last year of their hallowed existence. Dean remains underground.

Enter recording engineer Andy Hong, who helped mix the last Farleys album. He convinces them to record. And despite growing legions of non-believers, an album is born. Gavin McCarthy and Jeff Goddard, the rhythm section of Karate, join Rosa Chance Well. And much more is established. Pop sophistication and sureness of execution become the rules. Poetry and conversation emerge as the dialects. And emotionally the music of Rosa Chance Well comes to feel like a bracing hand on the shoulder, even as it finds the time to charm and shine.

Rosa Chance Well's eponymous debut is super-engaging, sophisticated pop.