Rhonda Rosalee's most recent album 'Chasing Shadows' follows on from the musical journey she had embarked upon in her classic 'Behind the Shadow' release (2005) which received widespread critical acclaim from almost every square inch of earth space available and for all of the right reasons. I am pleased to be able to review Rhonda's new album particularly as it's almost one year to the day that I reviewed her first release.
In 2005, Rhonda had established herself as a hugely compassionate and empathetic composer that took from personal observations and experience all of the bright and wonderful things in life that the rest of us would take for granted and turn them into flowing symphonies in that space between her fingertips and the fully weighted keys of her piano.
For the more dark and less endurable aspects of life events and perceptions (like Katrina, 9/11, and modern warfare), Rhonda carefully crafted melodies and textures that would remind us of the light that binds us, that makes us one and whole and unified in our optimism and in our basic human values and desires to rise above the ashes and the turmoil. Rhonda Rosalee, ladies and gentlemen, does all of this in composition, I'm sure, without ever being even remotely conscious of the impact her music has on our tired and weary emotions.
Chasing Shadows is NOT Behind the Shadows - take 2. It is an album of logical creative progression that adds tremendous value to those who are more attentive to (and comfortable with) excellence in composition, arrangement, and production. From the startlingly beautiful opening track 'The edge of ivory' to the highly accomplished musical reasonings in 'The cradle will fall' we have a magnificent album that's a year on from where Rhonda last was in her musical journey and a great deal more skilled and proficient in where Rhonda resides today as an innovative recording artist.
The Edge of Ivory introduces us to a more contemporary, revitalized, and determined weaver of musical tapestries than we'd become familiar with in earlier recordings. Rhonda's exceptionally attractive and skilled piano work is evident yet again but her focus is concentrated a little more on accompanying core themes and melodies to create an enriched compositional vision that spans the length and breadth of the keyboard. We see this approach executed in a more heightened fashion in Prelude to combat, a fantastically realized musical interpretation of where the world is today with regard to modern warfare and it's entirely human impact on the lives 'over there' and at home. Rhonda uses her voice to full capacity in her rendering of emotion and her musicianship is employed to emphasize the utterly senseless waste that epitomizes human conflict.
The endless waltz combines Rhonda Rosalee's remarkable contemporary classical prowess within some beautifully realized orchestration work. The song is loaded with some of the most sentient and heart skating string work that works really well with the piano components to bring forward a contemplative piece set to any number of distinctive moods. But then, just as you had begun to be consumed by an assumption that Rosalee's work is completely piano dominant, you find that in Walking on the runway, a wholly visual and refreshingly inventive approach is employed for the arrangement and the final production. It's a glitzy, audiophilically accommodating, and stylish piece that brandishes the artist's diverse and often intimate musical portrayal of the stuff going on around and within her.
Promised Land is a further exploration in stylishness for a slow, evenly paced, contemplative arrangement that makes good use of incidental instrumentation as a balance to the more dominant electronic horn sounds that Rhonda expresses with depth and perception. It's a beautiful piece on an equal footing with some of the most successful soundtrack composers of the day. Driven, meanwhile, is a globally infused composition with it's middle eastern, asian and north american inspired blends and approaches, it's the kind of thing that's a kind of common bond between innovative and expressive soundtrack composers but one that highlights individuality and uniquely creative inventiveness.
Into the Northern sky is the kind of piece that you'd have playing in the cockpit of a light aircraft after a blue afternoon's flying above frozen lakes and snow covered valleys. It's such a beautiful composition where you could swear that the harps and strings are accompanying your landing at a remote runway somewhere in paradise.
Jurisdiction is such a cool and conceptually smart southerly flavoured track with it's meandering and swinging between authority and carelessness brought to us through Rhonda's string and percussive sentiments and expressions. What's particularly interesting, is the sheer skill in decisiveness in the arrangement that the composer shares with us with a kind of selflessness and with a sense of the kind of compassion I eluded to earlier.
Voices in the fog meanwhile, is a beautifully visual anthem that awakens the soul with it's reassuring and memorable orchestrated passages that are presented simply and directly on top of some very accomplished and tight piano work. the vocal parts are arranged in a kind of 'overhearing' manner where one can just about make the syntax out but is left to imagine and assume the core meaning.
The eagle's prey focuses upon the challenge of pursuit and capture where the music actually directs your gaze to the hunter's search and the vast expanse of anonymity for the hunted. There's something I've begun to notice that's somewhat elevated in Rhonda Rosalee's current stylistic approach and that's the emergence of southern culture (where Rhonda is located) that's often combined with a sense of world vision in her compositions of late. I also believe that what's blatantly obvious in Rhonda Rosalee, the composer, that sets her far apart from many of her contemporaries is her complete abandonment of self and ego. It's in her music and I do think she sees her music as being a part of 'us' in a unified sense rather than in a self righteous or industry political sense. It's just an observation coupled with an assumption that I see as abundantly clear in her music.
Waters of Venice brings forward the more mesmerizing side of Rhonda Rosalee's approach to making music for the world to enjoy and consider. This is one of the most beautiful pieces I have heard from Rhonda and it's cleverness, on the whole, is in it's allegiance to the vision of the title location. Note the European phrases that literally swoop over the continent's entire history. You could place this piece quite naturally in a period setting as much as you can in a modern day portrayal. It's a magnificence piece of music in terms of it's inventiveness and in it's sensibly sculptured production.
The final track on Chasing Shadows is The cradle will fall - a piece richly adorned with so much inventiveness that it deserves no less than a dozen consecutive plays to be fully appreciated. What a way to end a magnificently composed and produced album. We have a complete retrospective going all the way back to Beyond the shadow, taking a rest, and coming back to us through 'Chasing'... it's the bit that gives us Rhonda Rosalee - artist/composer, painter of shadows and provider of some inescapable but highly spiritual light.
