Josh Rouse

Josh Rouse has signed to New West Records and will release his label debut Museums and Women on October 23. The 10-song set was produced by Brad Jones, who also produced Rouse’s critically acclaimed 2003 album 1972. Museums and Women showcases Rouse at his most hopeful and romantic, balancing casual poetry and wry humor in equal measure as he conjures up a cast full of drifters and dreamers moving through life with quiet satisfaction. 

The music is often bittersweet, with a gentle, seemingly placid surface that belies the deep well of emotion and memory and desire underneath. The result is a lush, cinematic exploration of the endless stream of passing strangers who slip in and out of our lives on a daily basis. He says, “I was drawn to these songs because they’re so observational. They’re full of characters and stories I dreamed up from little moments that sparked my imagination on the road. At the end of the day, though, it’s inevitable that I’m in there somewhere, too.”

The sessions for Museums and Women were quick and raw, with Rouse on guitar, Jones on bass, and Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, The Chicks) on drums. The trio would record live in the morning, cutting multiple songs in a row before returning in the afternoon to complete overdubs while the music was still fresh and new. “At a certain point, Brad had this folder full of recordings on his desktop, and he asked me what to call it,” Rouse remembers. “I suggested Museums and Women because it was the name of a John Updike book I’d always loved, and it just felt right for the kind of stories I was telling.” Indeed, Museums and Women is a particularly fitting title for a collection that observes its subjects from a reverent distance, elevating ordinary moments of human connection (or lack thereof) into gallery-worthy masterpieces.