Rosie Tucker (w/Christa Lee)

Rosie Tucker is a born songwriter, an evocative vocalist, an accomplished rock instrumentalist, and a funny gender-queer art weirdo serving up truly fresh indie rock with an ear for the long queer lineage of politically conscious singer-poets like The Indigo Girls, Ani Difranco, Tracy Chapman, and Glenn Copeland. The songs that make up Tucker’s fourth LP, Utopia Now! are career-defining, aiming to make a watermark high above most every other songwriter in their genre. The album comes out on March 22 via Sentimental Records. Written solely by Tucker (with the exception of “Eternal Life”, a cover of an evocative recent Numero Group unearthing) and produced entirely by Tucker and longtime collaborator Wolfy, this most recent effort is both a homespun labor of love and a hi-fi, creatively ambitious swing for the fences. Recorded at their home studio in Altadena in between walking the dog and watching campy art films, Tucker’s latest album is a beautiful snapshot in time, a picture of healing from the isolation of both the global pandemic and the atomization of artists. Utopia Now! rejects the idea that success means endless expansion, so perhaps it’s fitting that the artist was reckoning with their own professional setbacks simultaneous to its production. One album into their three-album deal, Tucker was unceremoniously dropped from Epitaph Records. A Friday afternoon email let them know they were newly independent. But like all good breakups, being dropped only brought Tucker closer to what they’ve always wanted: the confidence to move freely and creatively. What does an artist’s career look like in 2024? What can it look like? Rosie Tucker is finding out. And not killing themself doing it.