Rose Melberg has always been a productive overachiever - giving us a seemingly endless avalanche of mellifluous albums to treasure - but the past 5 years have been uncharacteristically quiet. After moving to a small Canadian lakeside town, she started a family, developed into a mature singer/songwriter akin to Nick Drake, Tracey Thorn, Elliott Smith and Isobel Campbell / Belle & Sebastian, and created her solo masterpiece, "Cast Away the Clouds", the spellbinding continuation of an impressive career.
Straight out of a Sacramento high school, Rose Melberg entered the indiepop 7-inch scene in 1992 with her first of many successful bands, Tiger Trap. Crunchy guitars and punk attitudes couldn't hide Rose's velvet voice and painfully honest lyrics, and the all-girl foursome quickly became stars of a burgeoning indiepop/punk movement centered around Olympia, WA and record labels like K and Kill Rock Stars. Too good to last, Tiger Trap split after their second US tour, leaving just one classic album and an EP on K Records. Wondrously prolific, Rose quickly teamed with uber- fan Jen Sbragia to form the The Softies, possibly her best-known project. With just two guitars and two angelic voices, The Softies debuted with a 7" and mini-LP on the wonderful Slumberland Records, toured the US 5 times (once with Elliott Smith) and released 3 amazing albums and singles, also on K Records from 1994-2001.
At the same time, Rose somehow managed to front Go Sailor who collected their sold-out and sought-after pop singles on Look Out Records in 1997, and had two songs featured in the campy film, "But I'm A Cheerleader". Never stopping, Rose also played drums on two albums with Gaze and recorded various duets and solo tracks while on tour. Those stray tracks were compiled on "Portola" released by Double Agent Records in 1998. All-Music Guide gave it 4 stars and declared "Even in light of the uniform brilliance of Rose Melberg's past work with Tiger Trap and The Softies, her solo debut is still reve- latory -- never before has her voice been so disarmingly honest and vulnerable... 'Portola' is a small miracle."
Having long since graduated from Indiepop University, Rose re-emerges mature and confident with the most deeply personal album of her career, "Cast Away the Clouds".
hello rose melberg. i finally got a copy of cast away the clouds, and it's as beautiful as i knew it would be :] your melodies and harmonies make me go wibbily in the knees. i hope we make music as beautiful as you some day :] jen
Hi Rose, thank you so much for becoming a new friend the support means a great deal to me. Your music and voice are great, love "Take some Time". Take a listen to my music and let me know what you think. Stay in touch and have a great week. Danielle
Hi Rose, Beautiful voice & melodies, i Really Really love ur sound.. indonesia needs visit from you! Thanks for let us be your friend, hope u like our songs. greetings from Jakarta,indonesia
