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rumination as ritual, the debut EP by Alessi Rose, arrives like a shot of adrenaline straight to pop’s heart. The London-based, East Midlands-born musician makes genre-mash songs that crackle with the torturous thrill of heartbreak, self-discovery and new romance, Alessi’s disparate musical and lyrical ideas fused together by the sheer power of her self-taught songwriting ability. Wise beyond her years but writing with the in-the-moment recklessness of any self-respecting 21-year-old, Alessi is a sly, acerbic new voice in pop, a self-made star with plenty of talent to burn.
Born in Derby, East Midlands, Alessi was drawn to the stage from a young age, enrolling in singing lessons as a child and taking an instant shine to musical theatre. Raised by a mum who loved ‘80s new wave and a dad who loved country music – “My dad put me on to Taylor Swift, which is funny,” she quips – she remembers feeling creative from a young age, entering poetry competitions in school and eventually combining her fondness for that form with the skills she was learning in singing and piano lessons. It was a strike of youthful ingenuity that led to her actually sharing her talent with the world: after seeing Gracie Abrams posting 30-second clips of herself performing to camera, and seeing some flicker of resemblance in Gracie’s conversational, casual style, Alessi decided to start posting videos of herself performing in her bedroom, too.
Posting performance videos emboldened Alessi to pursue music for real. Towards the end of lockdown, a friend of her parents had found out that she was interested in music, helped her download music production software and gave her a pair of speakers to use as monitors in her makeshift bedroom studio; slowly, she began to self-produce demos and upload them to BBC Introducing. Dean Jackson started playing Alessi’s bedroom productions, which weren’t even mixed or mastered, every Saturday, an early boost that signalled to Alessi that maybe her dreams of stardom weren’t so far-fetched; she ended 2022 being one of their most played artists of the year, without ever officially releasing any songs.