ROBERT ROTH COLLECTOR PACKS STILL AVAILABLE

We still have a few of the exclusive (125 copies) ROBERT ROTH collector's packages that include the album Someone, Somewhere, an autographed poster, pin, and collectible Robert Roth chocolate bar. You can fill your ears and mouth with the rich Roth flavor. Check it out.

BIOGRAPHY

Former Truly (Sub Pop, Capitol) frontman Robert Roth’s solo debut, Someone, Somewhere, is an uncompromising statement of artistic dedication. Roth’s soulful drawl and unshakeable soaring melodies weave together washes of haunted guitars, mellotron-soaked soundscapes, and warped orchestral passages into an ageless epic that differentiates itself from imitations. A recent feature on a preview copy in Devil in the Woods Magazine hailed Someone, Somewhere as a “truly timeless creation,” and said “Roth’s work overwhelms listeners one moment, then pacifies them in starkly bare passages seconds later. It echoes nearly every great blast of sound from the past 50 years, not in the order of its chords, but in its ability to shake listeners from their complacency.”

While the DIY ethic may have been gutted by empty sloganeering, Roth still keeps the faith. The more people stacked between the ether of an artist’s inspiration and the shiny record sitting in front of you, the more meaning you lose in translation. For Someone, Somewhere, Roth made sure the path from concept to execution was as

short as possible. Pattern 25 Records gave him the time, space, and trust to work on his own terms. Over the course of three years, Roth lived every element of the album’s creation – put together his own studio, wrote every note and lyric, played nearly every instrument and pushed each button or dial along the way.

The result of this unadulterated expression hits like a tall shot of something pure and strong. Roth’s celestial guitars slide along in woozy bliss, then viscerally rip open a moment later. Analog synths, mellotron, strings, and horns flood even the darkest moments with warmth and light. Time seems to come unhinged as the album’s seventy plus minutes flash by but songs patiently linger on incidental details, lovingly laid under a wall of sound. Someone, Somewhere pulses with the unmistakable electricity of nonconformity and self-taught mastery that has always driven rock and roll. The limits of sound and recording technology are pushed and prodded because no one was around to scare Roth away from daring them.

Equal parts Brian Wilson detail, Flaming Lips experimentation, Spiritualized bombast, and Tom Verlaine geometry, Roth expands upon the sonic frontiers he previously claimed as the singer-guitarist-composer-producer of Seattle’s Truly. After two EPs on Sub Pop, Truly (featuring Screaming Trees’ alum Mark Pickerel and founding Soundgarden member Hiro Yamamoto) inked a mid 90s deal with Capitol Records. Truly’s debut, Fast Stories...From Kid Coma, was widely hailed as one of 1995’s finest releases. MTV Online put it in its top twenty albums of the year. Kerrang Magazine loved it so much they reviewed it twice, giving it the max five stars both times. Seattle’s legendary music rag, the Rocket, looked back at the end of the 90s and called it the scene’s Pet Sounds. Off the momentum of their debut, Truly took its combustible and relentless live show international. When Roth returned home, he contributed mellotron to Built to Spill’s masterwork Perfect from Now On, wrote songs with author/musician Jim Carroll (Basketball Diaries) for Pools of Mercury and the Runaway E.P., and played beside Carroll in a string of sold out live dates. Truly closed the 90s with a newfound pop fetish on Feeling You Up and left the stage for good with Twilight Curtains, an outtakes collection.

On his own for the first time, Roth’s fierce yet elegant songwriting takes center stage. Someone, Somewhere plays like a movie, putting you on a first-name basis with characters like “Vicki and Jacky” as they move between urban decay and gentrification (“Walk All Over Downtown Life”), stumbling into the violence and chaos of Seattle’s millennium-closing WTO riots (“Streetplay ‘99”) into the rolling blackouts of both U.S. Coast’s (“Blackout City Serenade”) and the personal alienation that accompanies living in a world clouded over by the harsh order of 9/11’s cultural aftermath (“Relive These X,” “Under the Ever-Watchful Eye,” and “Yesterday’s War”). Roth’s work is personal but it also connects the personal to the political in the most subtly persuasive way. Avoiding lectures or preaching, he just recounts the low-level battles creeping everyday outside his front door. Somewhere between Thoreau’s “Walden” and Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” Someone, Somewhere’s ultimate effect is simultaneously unsettling and empowering. It reminds us that there are some compromises we must simply refuse to make.

For interviews, contact:

Barbara Mitchell, Deluxxe Media
Phone: 206.634.0345
Email: cocktailhr@aol.com

For photos, click here.