The former leader of Tiger Trap, the Softies, and Go Sailor has always been a productive overachiever - giving us a seemingly endless avalanche of mellifluous albums to treasure - but the past 5 years have been uncharacter-istically 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, and Elliott Smith, and created her solo masterpiece, "Cast Away the Clouds", the beautiful continuation of an impressive career.
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Cast Away The Clouds was released on April 25, 2006 |
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Portola was released on August 30, 1998 |
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Rose Melberg discography
| All-Music Guide |  |
New Interviews
· rosemelberg.net Dec 2007
· Sacramento Bee May 2006
· Portland Mercury May 2006
· VenusZine May 2006
· Coke Machine Glow April 2006
New York Times
There are echoes of Elliott Smith in the major-to-minor turns of the songs and the intimate mix, but without his self-loathing. While Ms. Melberg's songs are full of breakups and goodbyes, she is never bereft. "I've suffered greater sorrow than just being left alone," she sings, and leaves it at that.
Fabulous Jackpot Records, Portland OR
Rose Melberg is one of the most gifted songwriters of the last fifteen years. Begin with the breathless bliss of Tiger Trap, run through the hopscotch pop of Go Sailor and the molasses heartache of the Softies, and you still will be overwhelmed with the beauty and magic of "Cast Away the Clouds." These songs are gems, all clear and bright with delicate, perfectly placed instrumentation, evoking an era where songwriting was a craft above all others, when the whole world understood the surpassing beauty of the human voice and the way a few notes can change the way you breathe, forever.
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 in 2006 with the most deeply personal album of her career, "Cast Away the Clouds".