Emily Rodgers

Thursday, August 11, 2005

By Ed Masley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Not quite two years ago, Emily Rodgers wrote her first song, an aching alternative-country ballad called "Last Call," after moving to Pittsburgh with her friends in local duo Boca Chica. One of seven cuts on Rodgers' first recording ever, an album called "Emily Rodgers & Her Majesty's Stars," it earned her a spot in rotation at WYEP.

"I got an apartment all by myself and I just started writing," Rodgers says. "I wrote like crazy, 'cause I didn't have a TV, so I'd just come home from work, make dinner and play and play and play."

The second song she ever wrote, a country waltz called "Hell" that references Neil Young's "Ohio" in the lyrics, can be found on "In Spring Alchemy," a split EP with Kevin Finn they cut in preparation for an East Coast mini-tour they're doing late this month.

As understated as the sound of Rodgers' first CD was, punctuated though it was by Megan Williams' haunting violin work, this is more stripped-down and intimate, often just Rodgers alone on vocals and guitar. Her drummer, Andrew Rishikof, has suggested, in fact, that from now on she should cut her band tracks that way and then have her bandmates work around it.

"He said, 'Something different happens when you play by yourself,' " Rodgers recalls, although she's not sure why or what that is.

"People are always asking me 'Why in the hell do you sound like you sound?' " she says. "But it's just how I sound. I don't know what it is."

A major part of why she sounds the way she sounds is tied to how she sings. Like early Michael Stipe, Rodgers uses her voice more as an instrument than a method of putting her lyrics across, to where it would not be a stretch to call her lyrics indecipherable.

"When I first started playing out," she says, "I was so nervous because I didn't want people to hear my lyrics, and then people started telling me they couldn't understand a word and I was like 'Oh, cool.' Now, people say 'I really can't understand your lyrics, but I love it, whatever it is that you're doing.' "

She's been hearing, though, that it isn't as hard to decipher her lyrics on the new EP, which may be good, considering the way she feels about her new material.

"I feel like I've been writing poems lately," Rodgers says. "I think that's probably why I've been into playing solo so much. The first two songs on the CD, those are brand new songs for me and I just think they're more like poems than songs. They're not hook-heavy at all. They're just sort of stuff that I wrote set to music. That's just the way I've been writing, definitely a more indie approach, more artistic than entertaining."

You can hear for yourself Friday at the Quiet Storm, where Rodgers is doing a solo gig with Pittsburgh's own LoHio and a band from Providence, R.I., called Barn Burning whose sound she describes as "a little Neil Young, a little R.E.M."
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Writer: MANNY THEINER

Not having her officially pressed CD yet in hand, songwriter Emily Rodgers gave out a burned copy of her eponymous debut album, its cover adorned with a stark rubber-stamp graphic of a single leaf. That sparseness lends itself well to the music she has recorded with Josh Roman’s Mindrocket studio in Sharon, Pa., a brand of post-rural, ethereal alt-country drenched in primo melancholy and reverb.

Rodgers lived in Georgia until she was 5 (“which may account for the fake Southern accent,” she says), but spent her formative years in the Chicago suburb of Elkart, Ind. After attending the Mennonite college in nearby Goshen, she moved to Pittsburgh a year after her cohorts Susanna Meyer and Hallie Pritt (both members of country-folkies Boca Chica), and has taken up residence with them in Highland Park, as well as common cause with such local folk artists as Kevin Finn and Megan Williams.

“In college, I listened to a lot of Gillian Welch,” Rodgers recalls of her earlier influences. “And I had a radio show, which during the day was classical, and in the evening, folk music. We would always go down to Merlefest, that big Doc Watson bluegrass festival in North Carolina.”

Nowadays, for inspiration Rodgers faces away from the boomer-folk camp and more toward the indie-leaning elements of the roots scene, such as Julie Doiron, Richard Buckner, and Bonnie Prince Billy. “I started writing songs when I moved here in 2003,” she remembers. “I had an apartment all by myself, and it was my first time being where no one else could see or hear me. Some space opened up in my brain that I didn’t know I had because of that solitude.”

With the band Her Majesty’s Stars -- which on record includes Williams (violin), John Paslov (guitar/bass) and Andrew Rishikof (drums), but in a live setting has sometimes featured bassists Meyer and Erik Cirelli, and drummer Dan Baselj -- Rodgers has carved out a shining niche. But while singing, she also confounds her listeners with an impenetrable accent that makes her lyrics a bit indecipherable. “I get a lot of Innocence Mission comparisons, and Kevin [Finn] says I’m like the female Michael Stipe,” she jokes. “But honestly, I don’t fall into this drawl on purpose. I guess I sing sounds more than I sing words.”

Along with comrade Finn, Rodgers and her band recently packed Philly’s new World Café venue before WYEP (which plays the syndicated Café program here) had taken any notice of her. Once the CD comes out, though, that might quickly change, especially with the up-tempo twang-rocker “Last Call” slipping easily into a Natalie Merchant-soaked rotation. “Recording this album was a really good first experience,” she affirms. “It made me think more about arrangement. I became more of a producer than I thought I ever could be.”

Emily Rodgers celebrates her CD release with Kevin Finn and poet Emily Gropp. 9 p.m. Sat., March 19. The Quiet Storm, 5430 Penn Ave., Friendship. 412-661-9355.
- Pittsburgh City Paper

By Joe Heenan
Rated: 4/5 Stars

In her latest release, the In Spring Alchemy EP, Pittsburgh-based Emily Rodgers makes a strident effort to keep folk music relevant to younger listeners. Her song “Hell” references Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Four Dead in Ohio,” but does so in a way that leaves her free to interject her own vocal melody and her own narrative into the piece. “It’s tin soldiers, but Nixon ain’t coming,” she says. “He’s been dead for years, and I’m finally on my own.”

Rodgers’s contribution to the EP (a split with locally based Kevin Smith) includes two other songs, “Untitled” and “In Spring Alchemy.” In these three songs, each running more than four minutes, Rodgers coves a wide range of emotions.

“Untitled” reads as a chronicle of self-doubt and self-alienation. “Everyone is better than me, and I fear they’ve always been,” she says. She sings with a soft Southern accent and a well-honed sense of dynamics. As the song builds up toward climax, she lets her pitch rise and sings with force. “How is it that I envy what I don’t even want?” she asks. The song resolves with a feeling of possibility. “I’m done touring hospitals, looking for my own. Yes, great depressions surround me, but my wounds are my own,” she says.

The album moves in a more playful direction with its title track, “In Spring Alchemy.” Rodgers celebrates music as “gifts given in six-eighths time, and time is still.” The speaker in this song offers thanks for “words finally said to willing listeners, and lives lived in the manner we’d planned.” Rodgers finishes the song on a reflective note, repeating over and over the phrase, “without words what would we have?”

Rodgers’ tracks on the In Spring Alchemy EP are built around simple melodies played on different instruments, including an acoustic guitar, a banjo and a piano. The EP credits Kevin Finn, Mitchell Kulkin and Jon Paslov as accompanying musicians. The instrumentalists use careful restraint throughout the songs, allowing Rodgers’ voice to be heard clearly and distinctly.

The instrumentalists are closely attuned to the structure of these songs, allowing them to repeat and embellish the melodies Rodgers sings. It’s not unusual to hear a lead guitar, a piano and a violin all playing closely related melodies. The effect of hearing the same phrase played on each of the different instrument creates a soft tension and resolution that is beautiful to hear.

Emily Rodgers’ Myspace Web site features a quote from Magnolia Electric Company at the very top of the page, and lists R.E.M., Iron & Wine and Cat Power as influences. Listening to Rodgers, fans of these artists would find both familiar grounds and new horizons.

Rodgers will play on Sunday, Oct. 2 at the Garfield Artworks, on Friday, Oct. 7 at the HKAN Hookah Bar in the South Side and on Friday, Oct. 28 at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern.
- Pitt News (University of Pittsburgh)

By Anna Maria Stjärnell

Emily Rodgers has a lovely voice and puts it to good use on this minialbum. She has a country-ish twang to her singing and the music is akin to Cowboy Junkies and Gillian Welch.

“Going Away” is dreamy and sad with lovely guitar.

“Alone” is pretty harsh on its subject. “You loved your reflection in my eyes. Magnified three times your natural size” she sings. The downcast melody suits it.

“Lay You Down” is tender and devotional. Rodgers sings angelically on it.

“Winter” is a song where Megan Williams violin shines.

This is a great little album and I hope more is in store.
- Collected Sounds: A Guide to Women in Music

By BEN GREINER

She's more than a chick rocker. And she's more than just another local act playing for pennies at eclectic shops. She's singer/songwriter Emily Rodgers, and she's here to stay.

Rodgers is still somewhat of a newbie to the Pittsburgh music scene; she's been in town for less than two years. However, in that short span, Rodgers has turned many heads with her unique breed of music.

Upon her arrival in the Steel City, Rodgers immediately teamed up with already-established Pittsburgh musicians Brad Yoder and Keith Hershberger -- both alumni of Rodger's alma mater, Indiana's Goshen College.

With the support of Yoder and Hershberger, Rodgers began refining her guitar-playing and singing talents, and started booking shows wherever she could play. She eventually teamed up with guitarist Jon Paslov.

Rodgers' hard work has finally paid off as she and her backing band, Her Majesty's Stars, have released their first album -- a seven-track masterpiece.

Clocking in at just less than half an hour, the self-titled release is surprisingly good. Every song showcases the vocal prowess of Rodgers and illuminates the musical ability of the band. You could call the disc a breath of fresh air for modern music -- all songs are acoustic, and there's no "angry chick singer" screaming here -- or you could call it wholesome music.

The alt-country-inspired "I'm Going Away" seems to be an ode to a lost love. You can almost hear the anguish in Rodgers' voice as she sings: "I'm going away for a long, long while / For a long, long while." As Rodgers sings, you can't help but relate to the moving lyrics. It's a song that makes you think, "She's singing this for me."

The beautiful fifth track, "Lay You Down," shows off the talent of violin player Megan Williams. Her smooth, melodic playing ties the song together and proves that Her Majesty's Stars are just as gifted as Rodgers.

The following song, "No Way Out," speeds things up a little as drummer Andrew Rishikoff and Williams both play with emotion, pouring their hearts out musically. The two play in perfect time as Rodgers wails away.

With continual support from Her Majesty's Stars, Rodgers is set to be the new queen of local music.


- Pitt News (University of Pittsburgh)

By Marshall V. King

Emily Rodgers is taking a road trip this week. Rodgers, who graduated from Concord High School in 1999 and from Goshen College in 2003, will play a folk/alt.country show tonight in Columbus and Saturday in Chicago.

Sandwiched in between is a show Friday night at New World Arts in Goshen. Her fiancé, Kevin Finn, is making the trip too and playing with her.

Rodgers played viola in high school and turned to playing cover songs in college. After moving to Pittsburgh, she started writing music and performing solo and with an indie-folk group dubbed Emily Rodgers & Her Majesty's Stars. The five-person band released a self-titled album in March.

WYEP-FM, an independent adult alternative station in Pittsburgh, listed the album as one of the 10 best in the Pittsburgh area in 2005. The station's Web site states, "Emily Rodgers' impressive debut straddles the borders between Psychedelic Folk and Alternative Country -- not an easy thing to do. Rodgers' vocals are haunting and ethereal."

"A lot of stuff that I like is kind of ethereal," said Rodgers. Asked about her own music she said, "I never really know what to say."

At Friday's show at New World Arts, she'll play a set with an instrumentalist and Finn will play the second set.

Other musicians with Goshen ties are part of the Pittsburgh music scene. Heather Kropf, a former Elkhart resident, has a new album dubbed "What Else Is Love." Brad Yoder and Keith Hershberger have their own projects and sometimes team up with Kropf. Susanna Meyer and Hallie Pritts, friends of Rodgers' who are also GC grads, are part of a band called Boca Chica.

- The Elkhart Truth (Elkhart, IN)

3.5 stars out of a possible 3. (Written in Dutch--please see the following link)

http://www.altcountry.nl/recensiesjuni05.html#erod - Alt Country NL (Dutch)

Emily Rodgers' first national album is a sonic beauty with a heavy heart
Music preview
Thursday, October 15, 2009
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Todd Michael Sherman
Emily Rodgers credits the band for allowing her to dig more deeply into her songs.

Something about the name Emily Rodgers combined with the Renaissance-style painting of a woman on the cover will lead people to believe that "Bright Day" is a simple folk album.

It doesn't take long to determine that it's something far beyond that.

When Rodgers makes her first appearance 25 seconds into the song "In Spring Alchemy" over creeping guitar lines and a fog of atmosphere, the voice is chilling and ghostly, as if sung from the netherworld. Listen closely, and we can glean that the voice is a ghost. "Without words," it says, "what do we have?" It's instantly beautiful, troubled and hypnotic, inviting us to enter while issuing a warning that "Bright Day" won't be sunshine and flowers.
Emily Rodgers CD Release Show'

* With: Daryl Fleming & The Public Domain and A.T.S.
* Where: Brillobox, Bloomfield.
* When: 10 p.m. Friday.
* Admission: $5; 412-621-4900.
* Also: You can hear her live on WRCT (88.3 FM) at 9 tonight and on WYEP (91.3 FM) at 9:15 a.m. Friday.
*

It's also more evocative of '80s shoegazer band Mazzy Star channeling R.E.M. than a record bearing a woman's name would lead you to expect.

"Bright Day" is the sophomore album from the Pittsburgh-based artist, who debuted in 2005 with the more folk-leaning "Emily Rodgers & Her Majesty's Stars." This one is her national debut, released on the California-based Misra Records, whose roster boasts such acclaimed indie bands as Great Lake Swimmers, Centro-matic and Hallelujah the Hills.

It was the only label she approached, and she got a quick answer that Misra wanted it. It was produced by Josh Antonuccio (Southeast Engine, Lohio) during two or three weekends at his studio in Athens, Ohio, where Rodgers laid all the haunting vocals on top the music in one two-hour session, sitting in a chair that faced the corner. It was then mastered by legendary producer Kramer (Sonic Youth, Galaxie 500, Sun Ra), who sees something special in Rodgers.

"Emily is a true artist," Kramer says. "She lives it, and she breathes it. Music isn't so much something she's 'making' as something she 'IS.' That's pretty rare in this world of mega-corporations. She's a songwriter in the classic sense of the term. She's not doing this to become famous, or even to be heard. She's doing it because she HAS to write songs, and those types of artists are becoming much harder to find in these success-driven times."
Soul of 'Bright Day'

Although her artistry took shape in Pittsburgh, Rodgers has Southern roots, which account for some of the American Gothic feel of her music. She was born in Tennessee and raised in Georgia till she was 5, when her family moved to Elkhart, Ind., not far from Notre Dame. It wasn't a musical family, but Rodgers started playing viola and taking piano lessons in elementary school.

While attending the Mennonite college Goshen, she started turning up at open stages to play cover songs by Gillian Welch, Over the Rhine and other favorites. That creative spark ignited when she relocated to Pittsburgh in 2003, a year after Susanna Meyer and Hallie Pritts, her friends in alt-country band Boca Chica, moved here.

"I think what happened was when I moved here I lived by myself. I lived in Friendship, and I felt really anonymous in that building, just felt really free to make noise," she says, sitting in the offices of Calliope: A Folk Music Society, where she works as a publicist. "Something just opened up, and I felt like the way that I was walking around just changed. I felt like I got more creative. I think I was a lot more solitary when I moved here than I was previously. I got started and just didn't stop."

The first song she wrote, "Last Call," ended up on her first album. The second one, a devastating ballad called "Hell," was saved for the new one.

"I'm kind of a slow writer," she says. "I spend a lot time on the songs. I don't think I have any throwaways."

She started playing the songs out right away, first at Garfield Artworks and then at various Calliope open stages. She picked up accompaniment along the way from violinist Megan Williams and guitarist John Paslov. Early on, she adopted a style not unlike Michael Stipe's, using her voice like an instrument, making some of the words less important than the emotion behind them. (Also akin to Stipe, she's known to have the lyric sheets on stage with her.)

"I guess it wasn't really till I recorded my first album that I really understood that my lyrics weren't easily discernible," she says. "It's not an effect or anything I'm doing on purpose. To me, it's perfectly clear what I'm singing. What I do in general is very authentic or at least I try to make it authentic. Working with Kramer, I said, 'Do you want me to send my lyrics to you?' and he said, 'I just want to hear what I hear and get what I get out of it.' Some of the quieter things, you can hear the lyrics a little bit easier. Some of the louder songs, especially, I'm just trying to sing long notes that aren't even words."

"Bright Day" turns out to be a sadly twisted title for this often heart-wrenching record, which tries to find the light in the face of early mortality and the spectre of madness. It's dedicated to her brother Daniel, who died three years ago at the age of 22. "It really is a lot of what the record is about," she says, and we pick that up in lines such as "The sky has opened up and carried him away."

The lovely centerpiece of "Bright Day" is "Hurricane," subject of a video by Kramer's 17-year-old daughter, Tess (who took a summer workshop with Jesse Dylan, Bob's son). The video depicts the ravages of a hurricane with old film footage, but the mournful song is really about the emotional wreckage of a broken relationship.

"It's like drowning in the dark and fading into black," Rodgers sings in a deathly monotone, before revealing, "I am willing to be saved."

Rodgers refers to the video as a "physical interpretation of a metaphorical disaster."

"I often have trouble talking about what the inspiration is or what the song is about, 'cause I think I write sort of piecemeal," she says. "Lots of the lyrics are a sort of found art. Metaphors for what I 'literally' mean, words culled from signs posted on restaurant windows. A friend once compared my writing process to William S. Burroughs and the 'cut-up' technique of writing he liked to use. For me, I pick up bits of things and put them together in a way that becomes meaningful as it's being written.

"Even on a different day it can mean something different to me. When I'm singing there will be one stanza in my mind that very clearly is about a specific time in my life or a specific relationship, but in the next stanza it reminds me of something else or I'm recalling something else as I'm performing it."

It doesn't come without a sly, subtle sense of humor, as on "Hurricane" where Rodgers manages to make her second Neil Young reference on "Bright Day," while also alluding to his onetime nemesis Lynyrd Skynyrd.

But the brightness is clearly hard fought till the end.

Over a funereal jangle, she declares on the closing song, "You have faith and you believe/Well, I have dread/I have dread/I have dread ... But the sun is coming out on this here town."

Her Southern soul emerges in the way she lingers over "here" as if singing that one little word and making it beautiful will bring her comfort.

The snarl of feedback at the end says otherwise.
Support group

Rodgers says that when she first started with these musicians -- guitarist Erik Cirelli, drummer Paul Smith and bassist Allison Kacmar (replacing Austin Osterhout, who played on the record) -- there was a sense that she was the singer-songwriter and they were support.

"I think now we're definitely more band-ish. We're definitely louder, which I like, 'cause I feel like I can crawl inside the song and just be there. The band is based around my songwriting and around my vocals but that's not all there is, like I feel like we have a certain R.E.M. vibe at this point."

She credits the band for allowing her to dig more deeply into the songs.

"It's nice to have even a rhythm section that's really sensitive and emotionally plugged into the music and I feel like we're really on a wavelength together. I feel like they're supporting the song, like I can disappear into it because I can trust them. I don't feel like I need to make eye contact all the time. I just love when I sneak a peek at Paul, the drummer, and he completely has his eyes closed and he might as well be singing."

The name on the cover says "Emily Rodgers" (even if that's not her picture), but it's organic enough that it could very easily be the name of a band, which is often easier to market. Rodgers says Misra didn't really have an opinion on it, and she didn't think about it all that much, figuring it was her second album and the first one had her name on it.

The way Kramer sees it, "It's Emily all the way. The band is articulating her own very personal vision. It may become more of a band as time passes by, but when I was mixing this great little collection of songs for her, the line from my mixing lab was drawn straight to Emily's heart."

Apparently, he went straight to it, because Rodgers says that she considers herself to be a perfectionist and the fact that she's happy with it is a pretty big deal.

"The sound I'm getting now is just what I like listening to in other people's music," she says. "I'm really proud of the last record, too, but this one sounds like something I would listen to over and over again ...."

And we'll have to listen multiple times as well to delve into the dark dreams and haunted mysteries of a "Bright Day" that is troubled from the first note to the last.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09288/1005499-388.stm#ixzz0VMQwE5OX
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

OCTOBER 15, 2009
Singer-songwriter Emily Rodgers releases the atmospheric Bright Day on Misra Records

BY MANNY THEINER

More solitary: Emily Rodgers

More solitary: Emily Rodgers
Every lilting vocal and atmospheric guitar line on Emily Rodgers' new album Bright Day evokes a hazy memory, the earliest being her Mennonite upbringing in the small Indiana city of Elkhart. "Everyone in my hometown was in a praise band; they sing in four-part harmony," she recalls. "I was never in the choir, but I remember when I was in sixth grade, I taught myself to sing the alto part. That opened up a world for me."

Rodgers landed at nearby Goshen College, a largely Mennonite institution, and honed her chops covering Over the Rhine and Gillian Welch at the college coffeehouse. She hosted a radio show on the college station, which at the time ran classical during the day and folk music at night. "There were people in the dorms listening to Ani DiFranco or Indigo Girls," she says, "but what stuck with me was whenever I heard something interesting vocally."

Rodgers is just one of several Goshen alums who've ended up as regulars in Pittsburgh's acoustic scene: Brad Yoder, Heather Kropf, Keith Hershberger and two members of Boca Chica. "I knew people here who were doing Mennocorps [youth service], and liked what I'd seen," Rodgers says. "Pittsburgh is comfortable and small, though when I first moved here it felt big, figuring out the driving."

With a background in creative writing (she attends Chatham part time for an MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction), Rodgers turned to penning original songs. "Something opened up, and I remember having words come to me, noticing things on the streets and writing them down. My life was more solitary, and that gave me some freedom."

She released her debut, Emily Rodgers and Her Majesty's Stars, in 2005. Among her mentors and co-conspirators at that time were guitarist John Paslov (whom she met online), violinist Megan Williams (of Local Honey and Public Domain) and fellow singer-songwriter Kevin Finn, with whom she had a relationship and a split EP in 2006. Since then, Rodgers has become engaged to lapsteel guitarist Erik Cirelli and fallen in with prominent indie label Misra Records, which boasts artists like Great Lake Swimmers, Centro-matic and Shearwater.

Getting noticed by Misra was a two-year process via two central figures: famed producer Mark Kramer (of Shockabilly and Bongwater, and who engineered for the likes of Galaxie 500 and Low) and John Antonuccio, who had worked with locals Lohio and Misra artists Southeast Engine. Kramer had sent Rodgers a MySpace message out of the blue, expressing an interest in working with her. "Eric said, 'Oh my God, do you think that's really him?'" she recalls. "But when we were ready to do something, I contacted him, and since then he's become a good friend."

On Bright Day, Kramer imbued Rodgers' band, including Cirelli, drummer Paul Smith and bassist Austin Osterhout (since replaced by Alison Kacmar), with a shimmer similar to that of the Galaxie catalog or Mazzy Star. "This is the sound I always wanted. It's reverby, ethereal," she enthuses, admiring the unique vocal stylings of Michael Stipe and Kristin Hersh. "I like that big sound, based around a distinct, unusual vocal."

Similarly, Bright Day offers Rodgers' languorous elision of lyrics in what sounds like a Southern drawl, with a bit of the lonesome call of Edith Frost. "I lived in Georgia when I was 5, so maybe that's part of it," she says. "But I didn't really hear [the accent] until someone pointed it out to me."

The publicity materials sent out by Misra strive to position Rodgers outside the hyped alt-country and freak-folk trends, which is fine with her. "I don't want to compromise and create a sound that I think people will like. I've tried to be authentic, and I'm pleasantly surprised when people respond to that." Her band members share that perspective, she says. "We're on the same emotional wavelength, and I can trust them to let me crawl inside the song, because I know they're going to be there."

Besides setting a wedding date with Cirelli in March, Rodgers is poised to take advantage of the attention generated by the Misra release and its distribution through ADA, by planning an East Coast tour in November. "We all have real jobs, so our goal is to do an extended weekend once a month, and we've all committed to that -- it's just a matter of getting into the routine." - Pittsburgh City Paper

Hard work yields 'Bright Day' for Emily Rodgers

Emily Rodgers' debut release effortlessly crossed into folk and country without really staking a claim in either territory.

Recorded under the guise of Emily Rodgers & Her Majesty's Stars, the EP marked the Northern Indiana native, who now lives in Mt. Washington, as a formidable talent.

Then, silence.

But Rodgers, who admits she's a deliberate songwriter, was working hard on new material, biding her time until the right opportunity came along.

"It was just a matter of trying to work with a good label and sort of looking out for that," she says.

Rodgers' patience paid off. Her new album "Bright Day," which will be unveiled Friday at Brillobox in Lawrenceville, is on Misra Records, home to indie artists such as Palomar, Mobius Band and Volcano the Bear. It was produced by Josh Antonuccio, who has worked with Jorma Kaukonen, Southeast Engine and the Pittsburgh-based group Lohio.

Kramer, the legendary indie producer -- who has worked with the Mark Morris Dance Group, the Butthole Surfers, Mark O'Connor and the Broadway production of "Fortune's Fool" -- mixed and mastered "Bright Day."

Heady company, but Rodgers' material is worthy of such talents. "Bright Day" is an alluring, dreamy album that will evoke comparisons to The Sundays, Mazzy Star and the Innocence Mission. The sound is something of a departure from Rodgers' music with Her Majesty's Stars, but that work was meant to be a bridge to this style.

"The sound that I'm getting now is what I've always wanted to be doing," Rodgers says. "It was definitely a learning process. I liked the first album, but it's different. It's a first album. And when I recorded it, I was only writing for a year and a half. And even when I was recording that, I wanted it to be an atmospheric, almost shoe-gazer thing. But I didn't know how you made those sounds."

Part of the new sound came by way of Rodgers' guitarist, Erik Cirelli, a local musician -- and Rodgers' fiancee -- who has worked with Liz Berlin, the Chad Sipes Stereo and Lohio. Part of the sound came from a burgeoning confidence Rodgers developed after releasing her first batch of songs. And part came by way of the company she kept during recording sessions.

Kramer especially boosted her confidence.

"He really was passionate about it," Rodgers says. "When he works on something, he just lives inside it until it's done, and I can hear that."

Rodgers has been road-testing some of the new songs at live shows, notably at South by Southwest earlier this year in Austin, Texas. She's doesn't see "Bright Day" as a total departure from her first release but is, nevertheless, anxious to see how people react.

"I think there's passion and emotion packed into every song, no matter how I do it," Rodgers says. - Tribune-Review