Rita Ro was born in Mexico City, raised in London, England, began working on her debut album in Modena, Italy.  When you read her biography, you understand that this is a soul filled with all the passions of the world, a wanderlust looking for a place to shine.  Her recently released album, Renaissance,  captures her journey of self-discovery. The album feels withdrawn and distant, yet there is a subtle sweetness that touches pieces of my soul.

The album is also deeply flawed.  Her lack of technical skill with the instruments, especially the drums, is painfully noticeable.  Why didn’t she hire a session drummer or guitarist to add that skill to the piece?  Why allow the music to suffer from your own inferior skill set when there is a simple solution?  Musicians could use the work.

However, I do get it. With Rita Ro, this is a personal exploration.  I just wish she would grow up and get over herself.  The world needs more visionaries, not more layers of Reverb.  Besides, she needs to put in 10,000 hours of practice before she can claim mastery over producing, composing, arranging, recording all the instruments on an album.

Renaissance is a good starting point.  Excellent practice.  A good number of hours thrown in.   I hope she keeps going on and creating more music. I hope she has the common sense to add more musicians to her next project.  I hope she delegates.  The way to an EPIC album  is not More Cowbell (in her case, More Reverb).

The best song on the album is  Rainbows.  The percussion is better and the beat is solid.  The worst song on the album is the self-indulgent, Reverb dialed at 10 My Love is Blind.  I also liked Corrupt Me and the deconstruction/acceleration evident in  Galloping Into the Black Hole.   This is a smart instrumental.

The album’s first track, Through the Stars, is also very well done, but is a melancholy, dark instrumental that is better suited to end an album than to begin one.  The listener will ask  ”What comes next after sadness and emptiness?”  The answer may be.. “more sadness and emptiness. Move along if you can’t handle it.”

Most folks will move along and skip Rita Ro, writing her off as another suffering artist whining her music to an insensitive world.  This may be unfair to the artist, because Renaissance is a decent album and I will listen to it again- when I’m sad or tired, sleepy, unsettled, or in need of some self discovery.

 Biography from Rita Ro’s Website

“I’m a musician and artist, born and raised in Mexico City and based in London.

As an observer of this world, I try to translate the materials of my conscious into forms or into sounds, hoping to provoke in other people a bunch of emotive reactions as a more direct and profound way to communicate with them…”  READ MORE..