On A String

Anni Rossi roams the west coast with her classical-tinged fringe-pop.
by Lesley Bargar

Right now, somewhere just north of Los Angeles, there’s a beat-up boat of a car parked on the side of the road. Through the windows you can see piles of clothes, empty paper cups still holding the last pungent dregs of lemon tea, and a black instrument case that appears to hold something orchestral. In the passenger seat, curled up asleep, is a 20-year-old, classically trained, CalArts schooled violinist. Her name is Anni Rossi, and 12 hours ago she was sitting, sipping lemon tea, on my living room sofa.

“Where are you living at the moment?” I ask. “Val Verde,” she answers hesitantly. “Well…to be honest, I don’t really have a house right now. I’ve been living out of my car. But I’m supposed to move into a room on Wednesday.”

Anni Rossi does not look 20 years old. As she sat there in my now awkwardly homey-feeling apartment, Rossi appeared more like the subject of some Eastern European oil painting: watery skin, deeply set eyes, soft features, ash-brown hair stacked in an unruly pile atop her head—oh, and a black shirt with rhinestone letters spelling out “Botox.” So much for the oil painting.

But there is something undeniably classical about Rossi that goes beyond her choice of string instrument. Or maybe it’s that, after fingering various strings for 17 years (yes, that means she started at 3 1/2)—violin, viola, and now some endangered, renaissance cello sub-species called viola de gamba—her identity has somehow fused with that of her well-varnished implement.

As a toddler in the snowy, Scandinavian town of Scandia, Minnesota, Rossi’s grandmother—a church organist—encouraged her mother to put Rossi in music classes. From there, Rossi moved from piano to violin, and later attended a special Minneapolis arts high school, which is where she claims her stray from the traditional symphony direction to her untamed folk project was cemented. And after moving to Los Angeles to attend CalArts (which she has since stopped formally attending), she fell into a supportive community of musicians, traded in her violin for a viola (the alto of the string world, she explains), began touring, and eventually recorded her debut album Scandia—named after her home town. 

On Scandia, as well as during her intimate live shows, Rossi picks, pulls and plucks at her instrument with skilled urgency and love. Meanwhile she’s singing (or screeching or whining or tongue clicking) and tap-dancing—never an easy feat while holding an instrument under your chin. Her unusual sound has landed her gigs at more experimental venues and alongside a slew of noise acts, as well as comparisons to the bay-area based freak folk movement headlined by acts like Devendra Banhart and the harp-playing wailer Joanna Newsome. But to Rossi—and to a growing number of diverse fans—she’s doing something all her own. And as she sits on my couch, clutching her cup of tea, she attempts to explain exactly what that something is.

L.A. Alternative: What kind of scene or crowd is attracted to your music?
Annie Rossi: It’s really diverse. An example of that is I did a Midwest tour and I played at this bar that was in this kind of small town in Wisconsin. The audience was mostly middle-aged men who had, like, manual labor kinds of jobs, but they all came up to me and they bought CDs from me and they were asking questions and were really curious about what’s going on. And when that happened, it was like, “I could make this work in a lot of different circles.”

LAA: What other instruments do you play?
AR: I was trained on piano, so I play piano. And I’ve written a couple songs on guitar, and sometimes I play drums. I’ve been working on a couple songs where I just sing and play drums. And organ. There’s what they call a viola de gamba, and I didn’t even know about it until I played at this house in Santa Barbara and there was this young man who was studying music at Santa Barbara and he plays a lot of traditional baroque music, and there’s actually a Viola de Gamba Society of people who are still interested, because nobody plays it. It’s like a smaller cello, it has six strings and this ring, and I’m totally in love with it. There are people who want to loan them out to players who want to use them because it’s a dying instrument. A totally incredible instrument I didn’t even know about.

LAA: What’s the major difference between playing solo vs. playing with your band?
AR: The difference in my performance, which I think is the biggest, most noticeable change, when I play alone it’s a really intimate experience I have with the audience. I walk around, I’m in there, and I move a lot; I dance with what I’m doing. When I play alone I push and pull the tempo. But with the band it is about moving and having a beat, it’s a whole different kind of thing.

LAA: Does your unique vocal style stem from the way you hold your instrument?
AR: I think a lot of it is that [my voice and my viola] have such a reactionary kind of sound. If my viola is doing something or my lyric is saying something, I feel like I can narrate…there is just a lot you can do with texture with the instrument. That is a word that is kind of vague or whatever, but string instruments are very special that way—you can bend them, you can do a lot with them. Because of that, it’s totally influenced the way I sing too because it’s malleable in that same way.

LAA: What is it about your hometown that inspired you with your record?
AR: When I say I write things about my hometown, it’s not always about Mr. Lindquist who lived down the street. I write about snowy landscapes and winter a lot, I make references to being a kid, I have songs about glaciers, I have a song about my dad shoveling snow. I guess it’s just maybe being where I’m at too, being away from home now for a couple years. My grandmother really meant… she was really integral in me being musically inclined, and she lived there her whole life and was a huge part of that town. It’s just like a very vague, general place where my lyrics come from.

LAA: Do you pay much attention to the whole freak-folk thing?
AR: On my most recent west coast tour I did in November, I actually bought Joanna Newsome’s record and heard it for the first time. I think she’s incredible. But I actually feel like I want to leave that as what it is… I’m not out to tour with them or anything. I also just have an extreme curiosity of like pressing on. I’m sure I’ll stay, my relationship with my viola will always be there, but I really want to make a pop album, and there are just things that I see.

LAA: A pop record?
AR: When I say pop I mean, well, not Brittney spears, but very big. I love to do, like, pop-and-lock dancing, and I want to have a headset. It’s something that’s definitely in me… But for now, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing and keep writing music and performing just keep moving ahead.   LAA

Catch Anni Rossi at the Smell on Wednesday, Feb 8. Her second full-length, Aston, is due out in March on Sound Virus Records.