Discover New Music Introducing: Rows
Rows is an indie alternative singer-songwriter born and raised based in Brooklyn, New York. She is dropping her debut EP “The Pretender” on July 22nd, 2026 and is playing an EP release show that evening at Pianos NYC. You can stream her music on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your music!
Killjoy - Single, Spotify
Killjoy - Music Video, Youtube
Heavy Hitter - Single, Spotify
“The Pretender” EP Pre-save link
Photo Credit: Emma Bingold
ARTIST Q+A
Imagine: there has been some kind of government censorship on music and you’re only allowed to listen to five albums on repeat for the rest of your life. What albums are you taking with you until your dying moment?
Preacher's Daughter (2023) — Ethel Cain. For the confluence of religious, trauma, love, and loss themes. Growing up religious is by no means a unique experience, but there's something almost "don't ask, don't tell"-y about it. You close the chapter on your religious upbringing around 18 years old and cruise on with life. But the memories and shame and sorrow remain, so it's a beautiful thing that she's interrogating those themes in an album.
Carrie & Lowell (2015) — Sufjan Stevens. For similar reasons to Preacher's Daughter, but there's some kind of unique intimacy when I listen to that album as I reflect on my life's own experiences pertaining to my relationships with my parents and religion. I find myself thinking about imminent death and loss often, and I have this masochistic desire to, even for a moment, feel what it must feel like to have lost a person so foundational to your life. I know that experience is coming for me soon, at some point during my time on Earth, but I want to feel the "muchness" of it. There's beauty in pain.
The Best of Sade (1994) — Sade. Sade was my introduction to yearning and healthy love. I still get lost in her voice. It's rare to find an album that makes you want to dance all sexy and close next to someone at a club in the '80s but also cry into your pillow.
Tracy Chapman (1988) — Tracy Chapman. Songs like "Fast Car" and "Talkin' About a Revolution" are imprinted on my heart forever. Growing up, it was important to me to see Black women in folk music spaces. I also always feel something slightly deeper, different, and when I’m lucky, entirely new upon my millionth listens.
The Downward Spiral (1994) — Nine Inch Nails. Ok. Do you know that Polyphonic girl on TikTok? I'm obsessed with her physical interpretations of complex rhythmic patterns in music. This whole album is a full-body experience of beats you feel in your bones and lyrics that resonate against the deepest, most ugly and delightful parts of yourself and society.
Bob Dylan famously said, about writing his music, that it “isn’t him” — something else took over entirely, like a trance, and when he snapped out of it, he had some of the most lyrically profound music in front of him; music that he had trouble taking credit for. What does songwriting look like to you? Is it reaching a transcendent flow-state, or is it a way simpler process?
For me, writing music is a process-less experience. I often am greeted by melodies in my head—sometimes accompanied by words, other times just the melody alone. My father tells me that this is how he comes up with melodies too. Maybe it's some kind of transcendent genetic trait. Once I begin to chase that melody down, oftentimes words arise into my consciousness, and I try to write them down and record the melody as quickly as possible as it escapes me. The moments are ephemeral.
Do other art mediums (i.e. painting, sculpture, film) inform how and why you make music? Who are some of your favorite artists outside of the art form of music?
I would say that film is an art medium outside of music that informs my music writing. There are some films, like The Piano Teacher (2002) dir. Michael Haneke, that interrogates emotions and human experiences that transcend the medium, and they inspire me to attempt writing music to. There's a kind of visceral pain, love, desire, grotesqueness, and control depicted in that movie that inspires me to dig deeper in my lyrics to be more honest with myself: What emotion am I trying to telegraph in these words? How can it be more recognizable to the listener's own experience?
Is there someone in particular that has greatly inspired your current music taste? How have you carried this into your artistic expression?
My dad. He grew up playing a lot of what history considers to be the greats: Aretha Franklin, The Jackson 5, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Tracy Chapman, and Queen, to name a few. This kind of musical coding that has been instilled in me since childhood has provided a vast auditory library of different musical approaches to common themes in music like love, sadness, rage, etc.
You’ve been assigned aux for the spaceship ride to Paper Moon. What are you playing?
I'm playing "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, of course!! "Ground control to Major Tom...." Or I'm playing "Moon Song" by Phoebe Bridgers because sad... galactic vibes. Or or or I'm playing "Andromeda" by Weyes Blood. Ok, those are my big spaceship-ride-three.
The Pretender EP Cover
Cover Art: Rose Albanese
Cover Photography: Rafael Lee
