EP Review: Haroula Rose - 'So Easy'

Singer/songwriter Haroula Rose delivered one of 2011’s most charming debuts, These Open Roads, her reflective, mostly acoustic-folk songcraft coupled with an unaffected empathy in her singing endearing her as an artist of depth and considerable promise.

The five songs that comprise So Easy (released earlier this year) convey much the same charm while in some moments illustrating a bit more eclecticism, including broader sonic textures and some fuller-band arrangements. The title track, in particular, is an immediate standout with an irresistibly poppy, Beatlesque vibe, while “Only Friends” evokes the sort of wistfulness expressed in scenes of unrequited movie love.

With scarcely more than a piano accompanying her voice, Haroula Rose delivers a hauntingly beautiful, soul-clutching rendition of “Wichita Lineman,” distilling its underlying sense of lonesome desolation to its barest essence. Not only should this performance make the song’s composer Jimmy Webb proud, but it also deserves to be considered among its most definitive versions.

Altogether this modest set is reflective of an artist who is making good on the potential she displayed on her debut while growing more imaginative and confident with her talent.

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Getting to Know Singer/Songwriter Haroula Rose

Haroula Rose sings with the spirit of a gypsy soul, always searching for meaning or a seed of truth in each fleeting moment. Her voice is at once intimate and solacing, its gentle inflections betraying a subtle, plaintive sway that enriches moments of guitar-driven folk with the pathos of classic country.

She grew up just outside Chicago, lives now in Los Angeles, and considering even a bit of what’s shaped her artistry it’s clear that with her remarkable debut album, These Open Roads, she has found her defining purpose.

Haroula commemorated the album’s release earlier this year with an ambitious five-week residency at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles. It wasn’t the first time she’d performed at the famed venue. In fact, in recent years she’s played live on countless stages, most notably at venues like the Bitter End in New York City, Lestat’s in San Diego, T.T. the Bear’s Place in Boston, and the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip.

Though crucial to craft, playing live—like songwriting and singing—is but one aspect of her talent. “For some reason I used to think you had to pick just one thing and focus on that one-hundred percent of the time,” Haroula says, “but I don’t think that’s true anymore.” Perhaps she felt as much because her musical curiosities have, since childhood, been diverse. Growing up, she took part in musical theater and school choirs, over time learning to play the violin and, later, guitar and piano. She sang in a cappella groups and in various bands with friends. She worked for a while in a recording studio, learning tools of the trade that would serve her well in years to come. And, after graduating from college, she taught music theory to children while living in Madrid on a Fulbright Grant. 

It wasn’t until 2009, when she released a five-song EP entitled Someday that she once and for all resolved to pursue her greatest passion. “That took me some time,” she recalls, “to come into my own in the way of being able to say, ‘This is who I am, and it’s part of my identity that I don’t want to keep pushing to the side.’” And so it was not with any sense of blind ambition or naiveté that she’d made her current album.

To record it, Haroula ventured to Athens, Georgia, where she spent a little over a month getting acquainted with its Southern culture and music community. “I felt really settled in Athens right away,” she recalls. “Everybody was just so happy and accommodating to come and play. It was really, really nice, and all for the sake of the music and being friends.”

Producing the album was Andy LeMaster, a mainstay of the Athens music scene who has worked with such artists as REM, Conor Oberst, and Orenda Fink, the latter having contributed vocals to a few songs on These Open Roads. The opportunity to work with Haroula on her first, full-length album is one he looks back on with pride and admiration. “Her voice is so cool and unique,” LeMaster says. “I just loved discovering what sort of arrangements and soundscapes worked best around that."

For Haroula, absorbing the sights and sounds of Athens and its surrounding areas undoubtedly had an effect on the album’s overall vibe. “It made it seem more organic than it would have otherwise,” she suggests, adding, “but then there’s a couple songs that I feel like demonstrated this other energy there that’s really mysterious. In places especially like Savannah, where you get these really cool, old trees, Spanish moss, it just feels like you’re in another era of U.S. history in some ways, that whole Gothic feeling. That definitely had to do with certain parts of the record.”

Such influences resonate particularly on “Duluth,” a Mason Jennings cover that Haroula spins into a stark, sensuous resolution; and “Lavender Moon,” a love-starved lament steeped in a dusk, acoustic haze. “I wanted to experiment with different stuff like that,” she says, maintaining that she wanted the album to achieve an eclectic dimension. “I didn’t want it to be one emotional note the whole time,” she says. “You have to listen to it from the beginning to the end and see what this overall thing is. I didn’t want it to have all one sort of vibe. Hopefully people get that and enjoy it for that, because that was a challenge I had for myself.”

If at times her songs resonate with listeners as being heartbreakingly honest and vulnerable it’s only because she has confronted such fragility within herself. “When you’re a songwriter that’s part of what you give to people,” she says. “That’s part of what your job description is, in a way, to be able to express those things for other people to relate to and empathize with.”

On Friday night, Haroula will perform before a sold-out, hometown audience at Schuba’s Tavern in Chicago. Though just one of the several live dates she has slated across the country this year in support of These Open Roads, it nevertheless holds for her a poignant distinction. “When I come home,” she reflects, “especially to my old neighborhood where I grew up, it doesn’t feel that long ago that I was in junior high and I remember these places and all these memories come flooding back to me. But then it also feels like seven lifetimes ago. And there’s something so sad and melancholy about that, but also so beautiful too. That’s life. You do your best and that’s pretty much it, because it goes by so quickly.”



(First published as Getting to Know Singer/Songwriter Haroula Rose on Blogcritics.)

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An Interview with Haroula Rose

There’s a disarming sense of purpose about Haroula Rose, a humble assurance that comes through in her songs as much as it does in her desire to share them with others. “I’m proud of it,” she says of Someday, her indie-folk debut EP from earlier this year. “I’m happy when people like it.”

The singer/songwriter has reason to feel encouraged—as the five-track, acoustic-based set is an inspiring first step for what lay ahead—and listeners have good reason to enjoy her creation.

She recently traveled from her home in Los Angeles to Athens, Georgia, where she worked with noted producer/engineer Andy LeMaster (Conor Oberst, Azure Ray) on her forthcoming LP, due out in early 2010. Before she departed, Haroula Rose reflected on her emergence as an artist thus far as well as the qualities she most appreciates in music.

Did you always know you wanted to be a professional musician?

On some level I knew, but didn’t feel necessarily bold enough to go for it until [I had] enough experience to be able to tell stories and be able to offer something. I’ve always loved music and I’ve always been a singer and I was in a couple different bands, a cappella groups and choirs, but I never knew it was exactly what I wanted to do full-time until [in] the past couple years. I haven’t looked back, really. And that’s what indicated to me that I was doing the right thing. Because once I decided on it, things just sort of started to work in a way that, with anything else, it didn’t feel natural or right.

Who did you work with on the EP?

The guy who produced and engineered it was Michael Starr… I remember talking to a couple different people who were more pop-oriented or [who] wanted more control over the songs. With him I never felt that way. It was just like, “Okay, what do you want? And how can we achieve that?” And it was really nice to work with someone like that. It taught me a lot about that process. 

To be in charge of your own creation.

Yeah. I’ve heard from other artists and all kinds of advice from people say, “Make sure you speak up.” Because sometimes it’s easy for other people to start to take ownership of what they’re investing in, but it’s still you and it’s your song and you wrote it. So make sure you feel comfortable with whomever it is you’re working with to say exactly what you want and try to know that as much as you can… That being said, it was fun to work spontaneously to see what [would] happen too, because there are always moments where something might happen that you don’t expect. And then that ends up adding a whole other element. That’s fun too. Like, for instance, the piano was actually slightly out of tune on a couple of the songs and normally that would be something that could stress you out. But then I was like, “You know what? I like the way that sounds.” It kind of gives it this old saloon type of 1890’s feel. And so I thought, Let’s just go for that because I think it adds a nice element to the song overall, like this piece of nostalgia or whimsy that I don’t think you’d have if everything was perfectly in sync.

Then it would sound too polished.

The stuff that I’m normally drawn to isn’t really perfect and the people that I find the most inspiring don’t necessarily sing everything perfectly. There’re some flaws in it. And I think that makes it more human and I enjoy that so much more. Like when I hear someone like Nick Drake or… Tom Waits is a good example. I don’t think they’re concerned with the most perfect performance; it’s just the most human performance.

Are any of the songs on the EP going to be on the LP?

“Love Will Follow” and “The Leaving Song” are both going to be on the LP. We may not necessarily re-record both of them, but add other elements to what’s already there. “The Leaving Song” has a smoother, gentler feel right now. Part of me wants to sing it in a more playful or rambunctious kind of way. That might be interesting to try out, but I’m not necessarily committed to that. But it’d be nice to try. People tend to like those two songs a lot.

“Love Will Follow” is my favorite on the EP.

I love that song; it came from a pretty personal place. Sometimes the people you want to help the most are the ones who don’t want your help at all, even though they may be the ones you want to reach. And so, that’s where it came from. In terms of the process of songwriting, the ones that come easiest to me are the ones that people seem to be most drawn to. I don’t know what that is, but my theory is that it comes from a really natural, honest place.

Like a universal truth.

Right. I remember sitting at my kitchen table and writing that song in about four minutes. It just sort of came to me. It was as though something was speaking to me inside my head and I was just writing it all down longhand [and] playing the guitar… A lot of people say that’s their favorite and I’m really happy when I hear that because it feels like an honest place where it came from that speaks to people. And that’s just about the greatest feeling when they say, “That song made me cry,” or “I listen to that over and over and it makes me feel better about things.” That makes me want to cry because that’s the best feeling in the world. That’s what a song should do.

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Say Hello to Haroula Rose

With music that’s as heartening as a lullaby, yet informed by perceptions both redolent and inherently mature, singer/songwriter Haroula Rose introduces herself as a remarkable talent—and a remarkably promising one at that—on her debut release, a five-track EP entitled Someday.

Nurturing an organic, windswept sound borne of folk and alt.country influences, Rose—whose soft, unaffected voice recalls Alison Krauss and perhaps Mindy Smith—is generously supported by delicate melodies and arrangements.

She draws on themes of doubt and self-assurance—both the presence and the lack thereof—endearing herself as empathetic and emotionally receptive. In “The Leaving Song,” for instance, she sings with a wistful premonition of how her insecurities will cause the loss of a love, likely her first of real significance. “Oh babe it’s all so new to me,” she laments amidst a gentle rustle of strings and piano.

In turn, “Love Will Follow” finds her conciliatory and strong, assuring her special someone that in spite of his apparent disillusionment—“You get further away/ Every day/ What do you look for?”—she will always be with him. A stark and steady guitar progression underscores this promise and, while its sentiment may be simple, the compassion with which Rose imparts it makes for a gripping song.

Rose turns especially pensive, though, on “If I Could Pray,” during which she questions the essence of her faith and how—if such were more secure—it would sustain her in moments of great uncertainty. Ironically, she does so against a playful rhythm of hand claps and assorted strings, making what could’ve been a brooding meditation into something more hopeful and resilient.

Of course, it would be presumptuous to conclude—even though she’s written everything on this EP in the first person (and despite references here of her as a subject)—that Haroula Rose is relating firsthand experiences or exact personal feelings. What believing in such an assumption does speak to, however, is her authenticity as a songwriter as well as an interpreter of her own works.

In just over twenty minutes, Rose makes a notable impression with Someday, delivering one of the finer debuts of the year thus far.

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