Live Concert Photography: Anna Rose at Brooklyn Bowl
January 27, 2016
If you’ve been frequenting this site since its inception back in 2010, you’ve likely come across a number of posts on New York-based singer/songwriter, guitarist Anna Rose. Although she’s the daughter of Alan Menken, the renowned pianist and musical theater and film composer, perhaps best known for composing the scores of beloved Disney feature-length animated films such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas and several others, Anna Rose has developed a steadily growing national profile with the release of a self-titled EP, her debut effort, Nomad and her sophomore effort, Behold A Pale Horse. The self-titled EP and Nomad were comprised of singer/songwriter strumming an acoustic guitar and singing conversational, confessional folk-leaning material, which were fairly well-received critically; however, Pale Horse was a radical change of sonic direction and songwriting approach, as well as a bold, brassy announcement of an artist, who felt and sounded as though she finally found her most natural artistic voice. If the self-titled EP and Nomad reflected a shy, pensive, coquettish and vulnerable woman; it was Pale Horse that reflected a woman, who roared, strutted, stomped and was ready to kick ass, take names and didn’t take bullshit — while balancing wisdom with vulnerability.
Strays In The Cut is the long-awaited follow up to Anna Rose’s sophomore effort and the EP reportedly has the singer/songwriter pushing her musical and songwriting boundaries while being something of a continuation of the tone and feel of Pale Horse. As Anna Rose explained in press notes “I am very much an album artist and a storyteller, so the idea of scaling it all back to the size of an EP was a challenge in itself. It forced me to look at the songs in a different way, the production, everything. These six songs needed to tell the whole story. The limitations I placed on the length made the process so much more imaginative in every other aspect.” At the end of last year, I wrote about “Start A War,” Strays‘ first single, a stripped down, country and blues-leaning arrangement that was roomy enough to allow the New York-based singer/songwriter’s unhurried and expressive vocals to give the song a slow-burning bittersweet and spectral feel, full of the lingering ghosts of a past that always manages to poke its way through your present at a random moment — including past relationships and lovers, failures, resentments, frustrations, and triumphs. But interestingly, the song quietly suggests that grief and regret are very much a part of our lives.
I recently caught the JOVM mainstay at Brooklyn Bowl performing songs off Behold A Pale Horse and Strays In The Cut as she opened for Astoria, NY-based indie rock/indie pop act Beecher’s Fault and NYC-based indie pop act East Love. Check out some photos from the set below.
(Photo Caption: Anna Rose performing at Brooklyn Bowl last week.)
For these photos and more, please check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsktVU7Cb
