Rose Windows

Opening the set were Rose Windows, a new face in Seattle’s recent psychedelic rock revival. A seven-piece juggernaut of organ and immensely thick guitar tone, Rose Windows do much justice to a style of music aped by many fledgling indie acts these days. An immediate and obvious comparison of their sound would be to Vancouver’s psych-champions Black Mountain, but with the aid of singer Rabia Qazi’s piercing voice, as well some very astute guitar riffage, the group is largely cutting a niche of their own in the Northwest. - SSG

Their sound is kind of throwback to the psychedelic, flower-power sound of San Francisco during the sixties. The lead singer, Rabia Qazi, dressed in a flowing white dress has a beautifully expressive voice that reminded me of Grace Slick. The other five or six members of the band worked together to create some loud, densely layered jams. - Harikari.com

Revelations rarely happen at shows by new local bands, but I had one the first time I caught Rose Windows live in August at the Black Lodge. The eight-piece launched into a set of sprawling, baroque psychedelia that soared into the stratosphere without sacrificing memorable hooks and galvanic riffing. From the jump, Rose Windows had the crowd enthralled with songs that overflowed with raw, bacchanalian energy and the sort of climaxes that conflate orgasm with spiritual enlightenment (figuratively speaking). They leaned into their roles as if they were headlining Woodstock instead of a small DIY space. The bassist crowd-surfed while playing, and audience members' faces beamed with bliss as they raised their arms as if to welcome new messiahs. (No, I wasn't trippin'.) Rose Windows made an instant believer out of me and many others that night.

The young group began life with vocalist Rabia Qazi and guitarist Chris Cheveyo. "Rabia and I started writing together in the early winter of last year in my 40-degree room," Chev - eyo says. "We recorded a demo and started showing the songs to our friends. Our friends, as luck would have it, were incredible musicians." He speaks the truth. The lineup's filled out by guitarist Nils Petersen, drummer Pat Schowe, bassist the Duke, keyboardist David Davila, flautist Veronica Dye, and violinist Austin Larkin. Their onstage interaction shows a keen intuition with regard to the ancient art of jamming with a sense of purpose, not just to flaunt virtuosity—although there's nothing wrong with occasional flaunting of virtuosity.
Amid Rose Windows' kinetic stage demeanor, Qazi rises above the clamor to assert a kind of mystical-diva regality. She radiates a sensuous charisma, and her voice boasts a pulchritudinous huskiness that recalls psych queens such as Aguaturbia's Denise Corales and Shocking Blue's Mariska Veres.

"When we started, we were very much inspired by Sun City Girls, Amon Düül, and John Fahey," Cheveyo notes. "Much of [Rose Window's first] demo is mostly acoustic, but when the band came together to interpret the songs, the effect of just jamming with [our] friends turned into something that felt much more visceral and less calculated."

With a turbulent burner of a show at last month's Escalator festival and an upcoming date at City Arts Fest, Rose Windows are gaining momentum for what should be a spectacular ascent—even without an official release yet. As Cheveyo puts it, they just want "to communicate in a universal language the life we intend to live, and play the hell out of it."
- The Stranger

Once in a great while, you see a band for the first time and you can sense from the first minutes of their performance that they’re going to be something special. That’s the feeling I got from catching Seattle 8-piece Rose Windows last night at a fairly packed Black Lodge. Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast recently had been hyping them to me, and she was not hyperbolizing.

Fronted by the charismatic, incantatory Rabia Qazi, Rose Windows are a young group who un-self-consciously get totally absorbed in their music while still radiating an extroverted joie de vivre. (Crowd-surfing bassist? Check.) They don’t have trad verse-chorus-verse songs, per se, but rather mantric jams that conjure a primitive, Dionysian psychedelia that throbs and soars into rapturous, clangorous climaxes. (Bonus points for having a flautist [Veronica Dye].) Even a mutated, distended take on that hoary George Gershwin-DuBose Heyward chestnut “Summertime” appeared, and the effect was charmingly ridiculous and revelatory. At some point in every piece, crowd members were impelled to put their goddamn hands in the air and make some motherfucking noise, uncoaxed by the musicians. How rare and refreshing.

Late in the set, a difficult-to-please, 40something friend walked over, suitably impressed, and said, “Is this Shinki Chen?” Later he remarked, “This is like some Aguaturbia shit.” Yep, that’s the sort of heady territory into which Rose Windows are blossoming right now. They’re still relatively new and one can apprehend a lot of potential for growth. (That being said, they seem like a safe bet to be booked for this year’s Escalator festival.) I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about Rose Windows in the coming months, much of it in heated prose and Bacchanalian “woo”s. - The Stranger