BAND OF THE WEEK: ROSE WINDOWS

We have only a glimpse into Rose Windows, yet it’s enough to have us eager for a much, much longer look at a band looking to focus their vision.

Even that may be reading too much into what is in Rose Windows’ line of sight. But the music of Rose Windows overflows with enough pure, uncut drama to make it near impossible for the ears not to send in the call for a sometimes less than rosy ride.

The “drama” we see when peering into Rose Windows is meant as a high compliment, meant not in any modern way, in fact meant in the most ancient way possible – a drama defined by the action, by celebration, by collaboration. The result of collaboration is collective reception – which of course makes Rose Windows and every band a collective, not only the best ones and certainly not only the dead ones.

Download “Walkin’ With a Woman” by Rose Windows (Live on KVSD)

No, the music of Rose Windows is very much alive, crackling with life even – as the above number demonstrates with an almost unbearable level of clarity. In that way, the Rose Windows sound is very modern indeed, modern art to these ears, influenced and infused by the ancient arts.

Which brings us back to drama. And clarity. And modern art? Maybe.

Drama, in the case of one who has played the whole spectrum, can redefine the ordinary. On paper, the opening minute of “Walkin’ With a Woman” couldn’t be more ordinary. “I was walking with a women. I was walking down the road.” Shot through the enormous, enviously huge prism of Rose Windows, it becomes something else entirely. The marching beat taunts the guitars that are clearly itching for a fight, a fine flute playing peacemaker all the while. A stunning, spectacular, stop-you-in-your-tracks voice delivers a sinister dispatch from the very depths of her soul, from the very depths of our over-soul. “I was walking with a women. I was walking down the road.” Sinister – and this long before the devil, some gold and an uncle creepier than the creepiest uncle on earth are introduced to the walk.

The Windows do get thrown open in the eight minutes of “Walkin’ With a Woman” that follow, giving air and light to the song without ever subduing its thrill, resulting in an unforgettable astral-window smashing.

Such clarity requires focus, and the vision of Rose Windows is now clearly focused on recording a full-length album, “The Sun Dogs.” Appropriately, their doing so with a Kickstarter campaign (currently more en vogue than making a deal with the devil) and with the assistance of a Master Musician in Randull Dunn (and Dunn himself has done did some damn drama, y’all).

As for the modern art … it’s up to you to choose if you want to believe in the illusion. Illusion or not, we like what we see reflected in Rose Windows.

Rose Windows Kickstarter page for “The Sun Dogs” LP

“One of the greatest things drama can do, at it’s best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.” – Ben Kinsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji)