Product Description
After 2013's "Hereinwild" Frankie Rose relocated to Los Angeles for what turned out to be a journey of frustration, setbacks and ultimately artistic rejuvenation as Frankie moved back to Brooklyn and hit the studio with renewed vigor and purpose. The result of this existential odyssey is Cage Tropical, Frankie’s 4th album. It is awash with vintage synths, painterly effects pedals, upside-down atmosphere and reverberating vocals. It evokes a new wave paranormality of sorts that drifts beyond the songs themselves. From with the shimmery, cinematic and percussive sparkling of the album’s opening track "Love in Rockets" to the motorik groove of first single "Trouble" to the epic closer "Decontrol," Cage Tropical is a bold and beautiful statement of purpose from an artist who is once again 100% in control of her music. Mysterious but focused, it is personal redemption turned into fine art.
Review
''Cage Tropical'' does not break with the form established by its predecessors. Her sound remains vast and yearning, with gut-punch drums pushing through explosions of colored powder; her voice is a chrome-plated sigh, and her agile melodies soar effortlessly. But the best songs manage to take the Frankie Rose formula and subtly tweak it. She's always had a hybrid sound, as indebted to 80s new wave (particularly Cocteau Twins and the Cure) as it is 60s pop, but her alloys have never been as complex as they are here. ''Art Bell'' begins with Stereolab-like organs and dips into sultry, snake-like goth before diving into one of her characteristically gleaming, 60s-inspired choruses. ''Trouble'' rides a motorik rhythm reminiscent of Neu!, marking her most extensive foray into krautrock yet, and it sounds fantastic, particularly when paired with her long, linear melodies and counterpoints. There's an unmistakable hint of funk in ''Cage Tropical,'' one of the album's standouts, which lives up to its title in the lilting, syncopated keys, and on the moody ''Dancing Down the Hall,'' she lets slip a pitch-bending blue note. Even though it's over in a fleeting moment, the effect stays with you; it's a small but significant shift from her usual habit of creating tension by contrasting minor and major-key passages, the best of ''Cage Tropical'' does something similar, taking her own retro influences and using them to leapfrog her way out of a creative rut. ''Red Museum'' is one of the best songs she's ever written; it's the rare Frankie Rose song you can imagine being given an acoustic reading. Combined with the four-dimensional production sheen the gossamer backing vocals, upfront electric bass, an ice storm's worth of digital keys and electric guitars it offers a thrilling glimpse of what Rose is capable of. 7.7 ----Pitchfork, August 10, 2017
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