Rozi Plain
Inside Over Here

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What their label says...

INSIDE OVER HERE is Rozi Plain’s stunning debut album; ten songs that capture the burnt haze of endless summers; ten songs that ebb and flow woozily, washing like the tide over your feet; ten songs that showcase an engaging, fresh new voice in British songwriting.  


    Rozi’s ethereal, breathy vocal takes centre stage - harmonising over itself, without need for reverbs, or studio frills.  Clarinet, saxophone, accordion, banjo, soft-percussion and drums each play a supporting role - but, often, the voice is accompanied only by itself and a guitar.  The bare-yet-lighthearted openness of these recordings might elicit comparison with certain American songwriters such as Little Wings or Jason Molina (Songs Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.); indeed Rozi’s voice shares a fragile modesty and emotive keel with these artists, whilst asserting an identity all of its own.


    An album that does not apologise for spontaneity’s sake, INSIDE OVER HERE contains some of the most honest recordings in the Fence Records canon.  Songs practically inhabit the rooms within which they were recorded, bouncing around the four walls; they sway back and forth with the crackling hiss of tape and creak of floorboards on opening track ‘Let’s Go’; they jauntily click, purr and whistle on the banjo-led ‘Knives and Forks’;  they slide and squeak over acoustic guitar strings on ‘Foot Out’.  


    The fractured language of INSIDE OVER HERE is similarly playful; lyrically, there is recurring sense of wide-eyed wonderment and discovery.  The very fabric of words, their texture and measure, are preserved here - free from clutter and babble.  In this respect, Rozi breaks free of the stereotypical singer-songwriter mould - sharing much in common with the dislocated lyrical articulation of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis, or Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser.  Songs such as ‘360º’ or ‘Want For No One’ exemplify this detached state, opting for sparse, delicate phrasing and stripped-back arrangements as opposed to a verbose and forced expression.


    Songs were recorded in small household rooms by Gordon Anderson (aka The Lone Pigeon, and front-man with The Aliens), his brother Kenny Anderson (King Creosote) up in Fife, by Rozi herself, her friend Hector and by her brother Sam, in who's bathroom based studio in Bristol the whole thing was mixed and assembled.