“When I’m Alone” – Rosa Mack
Slow-burning, slowly-swinging “When I’m Alone” is both a paragon of restraint and (if you wait for it) a let-it-all-hang-out scorcher. The song is steady and magnetic out of the gate, with its deliberate guitar lines and Rosa Mack’s beguiling tone and phrasing. Listen to how she sings “Well I can get used to just about anything” (0:29) as an elusive blend of singing and speaking, redolent of the implied physicality of lips and tongue and breath.
The accompanying instrumentation is precise and crafty, especially when it comes to the horns; check out, as an example, the way they start in one place (1:15) and head in unexpected directions (by 1:21). Then there’s the delicious, slowed-down punctuation these same horns provide at 2:04, a characteristic example here of less is more. The first guitar solo (2:13, with an immediate eight-second pause) presents another dose of fiery restraint.
But the star of the show is surely Mack herself, whose mighty presence is intimated in the song’s somewhat whispery beginnings and revealed increasingly as the song unfolds–first via Mack’s ongoingly deft singing and at last by way of unleashing her pent-up vocal power (from about 3:20 on). That upward glide her voice takes from 3:39 to 3:41 introduces a final climactic section of squalling guitars, foundational horn charts, and potent mostly wordless vocalizing.
“When I’m Alone” is the formidable debut single from the Brisbane-based singer/songwriter, released in November. I’ll be eager to hear more from her when she’s ready.
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