‘Painting The Roses’ is in many ways a fairy tale -- not so much the sweet-and-happy ending kind as something richer, packed with imagination and rooted in the complex human messiness beneath a story’s artifice. Frontwoman Giraffe describes it as “this tightrope of being real yet synthetic, organic yet staged, light yet dark, logical yet irrational, beautiful yet dilapidated. Joyful nonsense.” Here, disguises like masks and paint are not meant to hide but to liberate, to “set a part of us free” and Midnight Sister often embody this themselves, appearing highly stylized, curious, warm and inviting but a little askew. ‘Painting the Roses’ is a story told through the looking glass, one where we examine ourselves in a funhouse mirror but find clarity in its twists.
Giraffe travelled to visit family in Argentina during the making of the album and reconnected greatly with that part of her family history, art and culture. Balouzian created the core album opener ‘Doctor Says’ during a session in the desert outside of LA. The guitar, which reminded Giraffe of South America, has a slow, sweltering surf-tango to it, like Dick Dale doing Carlos Gardel. And even though the song was inspired by Giraffe’s reconnection with Argentina, the song is about the fading of some close friendships during the making of the album. “Man, you have changed,” Giraffe sings, unclear if it’s directed to a friend or to herself.
TRACK LISTING
Doctor Says
Satellite
Foxes
Sirens
Escalators
Dearly Departed
Tomorrowland
My Elevator Song
Wednesday Baby
Limousine
Song For The Trees
Painting The Roses