APLR Presents: Esther Rose<\/p>\n
Friday, June 5th, 2026<\/p>\n
AyurPrana Listening Room – 312 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806<\/p>\n
Doors 6PM || Show 7PM<\/p>\n
Esther Rose<\/p>\n
Esther Rose was on a long solo drive when she started writing the opening title track of Want, her stunning fifth album. At first, the words seemed almost like a joke, something to keep herself amused as the miles passed. \u201cI want a puppy, but I don’t want a mess. I want to know where I\u2019m going without GPS,\u201d she sang from behind the wheel. Soon, the idea snowballed into a list of desires that spanned existential, spiritual, and mundane; romantic to platonic to familial; at once wildly ambitious yet piercingly relatable; all set to a catchy melody that blends her pop instincts with country storytelling and the raw immediacy of a basement punk show. In other words, she was on her way to another classic Esther Rose song.<\/p>\n
This precise blend has made the Santa Fe-based artist one of her generation\u2019s most beloved songwriters: someone whose live shows are known to conclude in mass tears and group hugs. Still, something was different this time. \u201cFor me, these songs felt like revelations,\u201d she explains, comparing the 11-song record to a memoir, alive with kinetic storytelling and personal insight. In its newly direct and stirringly nuanced writing, you\u2019ll hear about rock bottom encounters, shifting relationships with substances, evolving perspectives on adult partnership, and, as evidenced by those early lines in \u201cWant,\u201d a few jokes along the way. Vivid and bracing, Want places you in the passenger seat while each of these feelings arrive.<\/p>\n
To match the multi-dimensional tone of the writing, Rose has made the most adventurous, hardest-hitting record of her career. Working with producer Ross Farbe and recording live-to-tape in Nashville\u2019s Bomb Shelter, she travels as far as she\u2019s been from the stripped-down classic country of celebrated early work like 2017\u2019s This Time Last Night and 2019\u2019s You Made It This Far. Following the wide-open serenity of 2023\u2019s momentous Safe to Run, she now leans toward confrontational arrangements full of distortion and full-band spontaneity, never sacrificing a classicist\u2019s gift for melody that makes each song instantly memorable.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking this album was the most beautiful experience of my life,\u201d Rose explains, describing the euphoria of sharing these intimate stories among trusted collaborators like guitarist Kunal Prakash, drummer Howe Pearson, bassist Gina Leslie, and pedal steel player John James Tourville. She also enlisted friends like singer-songwriter Dean Johnson (who duets in the stunning \u201cScars\u201d) and New Orleans rock band Video Age (who she co-wrote \u201ctailspin\u201d with) to flesh out her vision. Ranging from stark solo performances to grungy blowouts, the album maintains a steady focus while never staying too long in one place. (Like David Bowie, Rose would arrive at the studio in carefully chosen outfits to set the tone for each session, guiding her bandmates to follow the mood.)<\/p>\n
To reach this level of confidence, Rose had to recalibrate her entire relationship with music. When she concluded the tour for Safe to Run, she considered quitting altogether, feeling exhausted and depleted, seeing no way to continue at her relentless pace. But after quitting drinking and finding new momentum in therapy, she devoted herself to the new material, letting ideas flow without worrying about the final product. She considered making an electro-pop album; a self-titled acoustic record. Eventually, she began categorizing her disparate ideas under the working title The Therapy LP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are things that I have tiptoed around in my writing\u2014and in my life\u2014that I wasn’t ready to look at,\u201d she reflects, \u201cand now I\u2019m going for it.\u201d The results are breakthroughs like \u201cHad To\u201d and \u201cRescue You\u201d that tether her tightly structured melodies to narratives that bring distressing subject matter down to earth. And where her love songs in the past often found universal resonance in simple questions about heartbreak, these ones explore complex subjects like accountability and true connection: \u201cBaby, I\u2019ve got scars that you cannot see\/Love them for what they gave to me,\u201d she sings boldly in \u201cScars.\u201d<\/p>\n
This level of vulnerability is new from Esther Rose\u2014a vow to be known more fully by her audience, herself, and the people in her life. \u201cEach time I write a new album, I go a little deeper,\u201d she says. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s been very challenging to stay… I\u2019m always packing the Subaru in my mind.\u201d And while she can still craft a road song like nobody else\u2014\u201cTwo days on the highway, solo drive\/Today is the greatest day of my life,\u201d she sings in \u201ctailspin\u201d\u2014she now searches for stability, even when that means confronting internal chaos. The album\u2019s closing song, titled \u201cWant Pt. 2,\u201d returns Rose to her old hometown of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, watching a Rolling Stones cover band in a bar she frequented back in the day. She\u2019s teary-eyed, surrounded by loved ones, finding new profundity in a shaky rendition of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want.\u201d As she reflects on the scene\u2014even interpolating some of the Stones\u2019 lyrics and melodic cues\u2014her friends provide celebratory backing vocals as the band thrashes away. It\u2019s a fitting finale for the strongest, widest-reaching album of her career\u2014a moment when the past, present, and future collide, a panorama of emotions, the kind of party you never want to leave.<\/p>\n
Sam Gelband<\/p>\n
Sam Gelband is starting over while trying not to leave it all behind. His debut album \u201cThat\u2019s All\u201d is far from his first, but it is an arrival that\u2019s been a long time coming. A recent collaborator with The Sons of Rainier, Bella White, Dean Johnson, and Chris Acker, Gelband emerges with his own true voice, one we won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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