What are dreams made of? There are hopes and desires. The drive that pushes someone to relocate to a city far from home with the goal of jotting down a tangle of thoughts to be rearranged into provocative melodies in the pursuit of making sense of an ever-changing reality. There are the subconscious images that seem so very concrete even as their meaning melts away in the harsh complexity of the waking world. These ideas coalesce in equal parts spontaneous and intentional in the musical offerings of newcomers to the folk-rock scene, Rosie Cima and What She Dreamed.
A data journalist by trade, Rosie Cima collects facts, overheard stories, memories, and the truth at the heart of interactions and meticulously collages them into a big picture view. A thoughtful, well read, and intellectual songwriter, Rosie is inspired as much by former poet laureate, Robert Hass, as by folk punk and anti punk bands like Big Thief and Hop Along.
The Washington D.C.-based band came together as part of a Flashband collaboration, a chance for strangers to create a new project for a performance. This lineup consisting of Steve Burch, a bilingual middle school librarian on bass, Mashaal Ahmed from the United Arab Emirates on drums, and Barrett Browne, former Peace Corp member stationed in Cameroon, on lead guitar. The band brings a harder edged sound to the folk arrangements Rosie packed up and carried with them cross country from San Francisco, CA where they previously worked with Oakland’s Geoff Saba, known for experimental and ambient work.
The band will release their debut album, Realm of the Warring Gods with This Could Go Boom! a nonprofit organization focused on lesser heard narratives in music.
The title, Realm of the Warring Gods, refers to one of the “realms” in Buddhist cosmology, which some say can be mapped onto both psychological states and real physical places. “Just before moving, I read a book that said the division between earth and the realm of the hungry ghosts — where desire and cravings and addiction go wild — is probably thinnest in places like Las Vegas,” Rosie explains, “and the realm of the warring gods — where egos clash and the will to power reigns supreme — is of course Washington, D.C.”
Details and vulnerability bring this collection of songs into focus – a soft fleece, the embrace of a friend at a funeral, the isolation of a lone bus ride.
Lead single, “Stuck” explores not just experiencing pain but sitting with it, working through.
“This song is about knowing you absolutely need to let go of someone but pining for them anyway. I wrote this in the weeks after my first tour as a singer-songwriter. It wasn’t the first song I’d written that made me wish I had a band, but it was the best so far and whenever I played it, I ached.”
“Waxwing” brings poetry and loss together. Learning to love through grief.
“In March of 2019, a friend of mine was hit while riding her bicycle and died. It was the first time losing someone that close to me. I flew home for the services and her partner read aloud from a book they had read together: Pale Fire, by Nabokov. It’s about a bird flying into a window, and I’ve been reciting it whenever I play the song.”
As a performer, Rosie Cima shies away from exhibition and grandiose gestures. A quiet honesty permeates their manner even as the songs tend to break out in full throated passion. A ten-day silent spiritual retreat outside of Yosemite led Rosie to push concepts of self and consciousness in a way that illuminates the delivery of the songs on Realm of the Warring Gods. Grit and growls transcend the melodic lines outside of what is immediately glossy and beautiful so that they find their own symmetry and form.
The band spent the pandemic year practicing outdoors socially distanced in the yard. “Sometimes I look up and the little girls next door are watching between the slats of their back porch, which is honestly the best audience I could ask for,” Rosie told District Fray.
That appreciation for community and for the love of music inspired the band to work with a local venue to establish a Gig Guarantee Fund to support live musicians and small music businesses through a tough year as part of their album pre-sale.
“I do not know whether “The Realm of the Warring Gods” is a fair label for D.C. as a city. But I do know that I’ve learned a lot about power, and my relationship to it, in my time here. I needed to dip into this realm, explore it and understand it to develop both artistically and personally.”
