IT is early November and Rosali Middleman is standing alone under the flying M that tops the stage at Motorco Music Hall in Durham, North Carolina, a modern little Southern city 30 miles from her home in the countryside. In the soft blue and purple stage lights, her slender height is twinned by the tall concert harp that stands by for headliner Mary Lattimore, an old friend from Philadelphia’s teeming music scene.
Though Middleman’s set includes songs from her as-yet-unreleased fourth record, Bite Down, she isn’t trying to dial them in. Instead, using a Loop Station, she blows them out with fluent improvisation. Her shining, stinging Gibson SG tone coils higher and higher; her calm but penetrating alto voice spreads like mentholated smoke. In effect, she is pre-deconstructing her new songs, as far as the audience are concerned, letting her experimental music infiltrate her mainline work in a way that she never has until tonight. It is not your typical launch strategy.
But then Middleman has every reason to be confident right now. She has a high-profile new record label and a band she’s head over heels for to support her best album so far – a tender yet commanding set of folk, country and atmospheric rock done up in blaze orange and shadow blue.
Mike Polizze, the leader of the band Purling Hiss, knew her in Philadelphia for years before he ever saw her sing, not long before the release of her debut LP. He later added psych guitar to her song “Lie To Me”, and Purling
