New Release – A Place to Go When You Need to Hide (album) by Rose Alaimo
Rose Alaimo is a one-lady band from Ithaca, NY who writes, performs, records, and co-produces all of her own music. Her lyrics trend toward the dreamy and existential with a voice most commonly referred to as “honest”, and she dabbles in genres from a capella and folk to blues and hard rock. Rose believes strongly in creating albums to more fully explore ideas, has a special obsession with creating vocal harmonies, and is also a vegetable farmer and veterinarian.
Her album ‘A Place to Go When You Need to Hide’ releases 27th October. A pre-save is available.
How would you describe the album?
“‘A Place To Go When You Need To Hide’ is a concept album based on the idea that we have a place inside of ourselves where we can go when the world gets to be too much where we can stop for a minute, regroup, and choose how we want to move forward through whatever circumstances life presents us with. It is loosely based on the Victor Frankl quote, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The songs were written during the worst parts of covid amid massive political unrest and racial tension in the US, an uptick in school shootings and the onset of Russia’s war on Ukraine, among other issues. These events also coincided with difficulties in my personal life including leaving (and later returning to) my career as a veterinarian and also being diagnosed with long-term post-infectious Lyme disease. Lyrically, the album chronicles parts of my own path as I navigated through this period of darkness.”
“While lyrically it is a concept album, musically I wanted to stretch my wings a bit. My last two albums intentionally fit a musical theme – ‘The Importance of Centers’ was a chill, acoustic based piece and ‘Grow’ was obviously straight up edgy rock, but I wanted this new album to explore a broader emotional and musical space since it was based on circumstances and events that took me *all over the place* emotionally and mentally and even physically.”
“The album holds a bit of everything – an ambient ballad, more synths than my previous work, some dance inspired sounds, some banjo which is new LOL, and pieces inspired by southern rock, blues, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, choral music, folk, as well as hard rock, with some really fun string arrangements in the mix as well.”
“As with ‘Grow’, I created this album with production mentorship from producer Jamie Hill, and had fun using some new production tricks as well, like EQ filters and such. I’m really happy with how wide and full the album feels.”
Could you pick one or two songs on the album and discuss how they came to be?
“One song that I would love to highlight from the album is the last song, ‘Here I Am’. The songs were recorded in the exact order they appear on the album, so this song was actually created last. It is a big song, and is actually a reprise medley – it is a compilation of four songs from the album that were re-worked to fit together and it was super fun to create. The best part about this song, however, is that it is the first time on one of my albums where someone else is featured. In this case, twelve other people. Normally, I do my own vocals and instruments on my songs but I needed a big chorus at the end and it just wasn’t something I could create alone, so I decided to ask the twelve people in my life who have most influenced and supported me musically since I started playing my first instrument (the bass!) at age 13. These wonderful people are: Ray McGarry, Tess James, Chenél No.1, Ben Shaw, Ammitai Worob, Jamie Hill, Shannon Curtis, Jack McCarthy, Joe Donahue, Bill Hoffman, Colwyn Gulliford, and Derrick Boucher. It makes me incredibly happy hearing all of these people sing this chorus from three different continents and places all over the US. It is the perfect ending to the album and every time I hear them singing this part with me I kinda tear up. :)”
What message do you hope your music sends to listeners? What do you hope they can take away from your songs?
“After the world was rocked by covid and all the drama that went with it and after leaving my career as a veterinarian and, after some really deep dives in therapy and some soul-searching, began to re-enter the profession slowly and with a lot of new boundaries, I was pretty much wiped out. I kept feeling like I needed to escape or *go somewhere* but no place felt like the right place. I felt like I needed to make my world a little smaller to find my center again so I got off social media for a while and spent my time intentionally focusing on things that made me feel grounded and at peace. I spent lots of time in my garden, with close friends, hiking, and writing music, and I started to finally feel like I found my hiding place from the world, where I could stay for a bit and regroup. It was at this moment that I was diagnosed with chronic post-infectious Lyme disease, and this rocked me – it felt like I couldn’t escape all the insanity and darkness in the world no matter how hard I tried. It had literally found me in my hiding place and continued to mercilessly plague me there. Life spiralled even further into darkness and confusion as doctor after doctor could not explain what was happening with my body and my symptoms kept getting weirder and worse. In the second winter of this mess, which was during the creation of the second half of this album, I had a bit of an existential breakdown. I couldn’t see past life’s suffering and began to seriously question every belief I had in “fairness” or “balance” in the universe and whatever higher power existed out there. It was after a few months of traveling through this that I realized that the place I was seeking to momentarily escape from the crazy world wasnt a *place* like my garden or a beautiful beach somewhere. What I was looking for was much deeper and only existed inside of myself. I spent the next few months trying to piece together a new worldview after my old one fell apart and spent a lot of time with my thoughts and feelings, dug into an old meditation practice, and slowly accepted the idea that life is NOT always fair, and it sometimes is SO bleak and dark, and so often people suffer and it feels unbearable and sometimes there is absolutely nothing we can do to change it, and that *hurts*.”
“So to answer your question – the conflict in the album is one that I have been struggling with and will likely continue to struggle with for some time. Namely, how can the world be so unbearably dark while at the same time also be so incredibly bright? How can life be full of *horrendous* suffering and also so full of brilliant joy? These highs and lows present such a weird and intense balancing act that can be really, really hard to hold and it can feel like the world or our circumstances are ripping us apart. But the message in the album is a hopeful one, and is that, no matter what happens around us, we all have the ability to cultivate a place inside of ourselves where we can go when things feel like too much where we can find some clarity and stillness and then decide how we want to move forward. And it isn’t just for *us* that this is important. You can’t bring help or peace to a person or to a dark world unless you have it yourself. So being mindful about accessing this space and finding your balance is obviously healthy for you but it is also healthy for everyone around you as well.”
“My lesson from the last few years, and from working on and meditating deeply on the themes of this album is as follows: All I can do is try to navigate the ups and downs of life as well as I can- and know that there will ALWAYS be ups and downs and I may never understand WHY- and to pray for clarity so that I can do the right thing and act appropriately when something needs righting and action.”
