Frankie Rose and the Outs (self-titled)
LABEL: Slumberland
Although she doesn’t quite yet belong in the mercurial company of Jim O’Rourke, D’Angelo, or Jandek, Frankie Rose is a bit of an oddball in an ostensibly indie sphere that now permeates everything from the late night talk shows to Madison Square Garden. Despite passing through a revolving door that encompasses nearly all of the seminal shitgaze bands (the Vivian Girls in their first iteration, Dum Dum Girls, and the Crystal Stilts) that coalesced around such north Brooklyn venues as the Market Hotel and Monster Island Basement, Rose seldom tours. Save for a fluff piece on “the most stylish New Yorkers” on Time Out New York’s website—where she takes the titular femme fatale of Charles Vidor’s Gilda into the 21st Century, professing to the interviewer in a brusquely Hayworthesque manner that “I wear what I like.” A recent blurb on The Fader’s website, the decidedly ethereal multi-instrumentalist has been relatively evasive of an increasingly omnipotent press, no small feat in an era where only Bob Dylan can still get away with such frivolity.
“...the Outs validate certain central tenets of systems theory: they are neither here or there, figments of a past that never truly passed.”
But unlike the stylistic miscreants listed above, there’s nothing particularly recondite about Rose’s MO; if you’re seeking something that foreshadows the pop sound of 2025, conserve the hard drive space hitherto reserved for Frankie Rose and the Outs in favor of Balam Acab’s See Birds or the truly numinous sounds of Mount Kimbie’s Crooks and Lovers. The salient fact is that Rose is a dazzling interpreter of a tradition that commenced with the Brill Building machine, found postmodern relevance in punk’s first excoriating wave, and reached its subversive apotheosis on the dance floor before disappearing altogether. It’s the kind of album that would make the neo-Deleuzian fabulist Manuel DeLanda very happy, for the Outs validate certain central tenets of systems theory: they are neither here or there, figments of a past that never truly passed.
Indeed, “Hollow Life”—a languid opener if there ever was one. It’s something of a bridge between the abrasive, distorted paradigm that united the Brooklyn bands and the plaintive, melodic approach that Rose first showcased on the standout track from Vivian Girls; the Byrdsian, Gene Clark-channeling “Where Do You Run To?”. It’s followed by the taut, frisky punch of “Candy”, which applies post-punk aesthetics to the primeval audacity of The Sparkles, The Mojo Men, and other Sixties garage-punk bands. This influence also resonates through “Must Be Nice”, an all-too-brief paean to Curt Boettcher’s surf symphonies, while “Don’t Tread” is a nasty near-instrumental stomper that sounds like a deliriously off-the-cuff collaboration between Dick Dale and Boredoms. “Little Brown Haired Girls” is a somewhat overwrought excursion into pure shoegaze, but the spectral melody of “Lullaby for Roads and Miles”—ballasted by a heavily tremoloed guitar—ably demonstrates that Rose may well belong in the rarefied company of Will Oldham if her center holds. And there is something canonically appropriate about the album’s penultimate track, a cover of Arthur Russell’s “You Can Make Me Feel Bad”; Russell loved Stevie Nicks and worked extensively with Jennifer Warnes, and it’s easy to envision him seeking out Rose’s services in his dotage.
While this could have easily been the Crazy for You of the East Coast scene (not that there is anything wrong with that), Rose has remained as defiantly idiosyncratic in her artistry as ever. In a year that has seen the press and fans alike fetishize increasingly marginal subgenres of music before moving on in a matter of months—and sometimes, mere weeks—the Outs are a testament to the fact that classic pop will always be classic pop.
REVIEWED BY SEAN MURPHY
SEAN’S FAVE TRACKS: “Lullaby for Roads and Miles” • “Don’t Tread” • “Candy” 
FREE MP3: “Little Brown Haired Girls” (right-click & save)FREE MP3: “Candy” (right-click & save)
