Country music is certainly changing these days, not only musically, but in its overall outlook on all things. Not that those stuck in the set country music concepts like it too much, but it seems there isn’t much they can do about it. What with all the developing form that seems to be encroaching on the ‘traditional’ country territory like Americana, Roots, Alt-Country, and others.
The brunt of these changes seems to be carried by female artists like Kacey Musgraves, Allison Krauss, Samantha Crain, and quite a few others. You can now add Esther Rose, an artist that moved further West to New Mexico from her native Louisiana, to that list.
On How Many Times, her latest release, like Musgraves and Krauss, Rose does not completely abandon all those elements that characterize country music. She simply re-shuffles the elements and also shows that she has open ears to what is going on in other musical genres. Tracks like “How Many Times” and “Coyote Creek” are excellent examples of that.
As Rose puts it herself about her music and her band, “we’re not really country enough for the country…that’s what I found out, we don’t really fit in anywhere. We’re in this really special pocket and I really like it.”
And she should because Rose has that musical feel and capabilities that she could fit practically into any musical genre. It seems that just by chance she decided to take on re-arranging strands of country music in the manner she sees (and hears) it fit.
