Imagine yourself immersed in nature: soaked by the sun, breeze in your hair, maybe a couple of good friends by your side. You all spend the day enjoying the beauty of the earth, then the sun begins to set, and the stars wash over the black night as everyone looks up in amazement to witness the spectacle. This is just a snapshot of what it feels like to listen to the new album, “Out of the Shade, Under the Stars” by Decent Colors.
This project, hailing locally from the nearby town of New Windsor, is the work of a man named Carlo Rossi. He is responsible for everything on this record, playing every single instrument himself as well as lending his vocals to create this one-man band. For live performances, Rossi employs the help of James Turner, Antonio Cortez and Marc Alberti to play bass, second guitar/synths and drums respectively, yet the recordings are solely him. Rossi did have help with the mastering process from fellow musician and SUNY New Paltz student Daniel Mulligan, who Rossi insists that he could not have done it without.
The project itself is only a little over a year old, where they cut their teeth through performances in various venues like Reason & Ruckus in Poughkeepsie, as well as DIY house shows such as The Grotto and The Hog House. Around this time, Rossi had only written about four or five of the original tunes, bolstering the rest of the setlists with covers, yet this was only the beginning. Decent Colors continued to book and play shows consistently, and during this time, Rossi worked tirelessly on finalizing the record in between his college, work and home life.
Now that the album has been released on March 18, Rossi said that it felt like a relief. To Rossi, writing the songs was the easy part, but the lyrics seemed to give him more of a challenge. What was truly the tedious part was recording the songs, as Rossi stated, “Committing to a record was mentally the hardest… I think [that] was the hardest part and deciding what songs to keep, like which ones will make the cut and deciding when to call it.”
Originally, Rossi said that he was prepared to release the record this past summer with only seven tracks, but just didn’t feel ready yet, stressing that he didn’t want to rush this project for any reason. Since then, he has added three additional songs to round out the LP at a solid 10 songs total.
Talking about the emotional content of the record, Rossi mentioned that the lyrics came from his own emotions and feelings, but some songs are even written from other people’s perspectives. In particular, Rossi feels attached to the track “Face to Name,” stating “I kind of nurtured that song into existence, because I wanted to give up on it a lot of times.”
The music seemed to come to him in a very freeform manner, where he didn’t go for a particular sound with Decent Colors and wasn’t trying to prove anything. Forthrightly, Rossi stated, “I never had something to get off my chest, but it just came out that way. It’s through the recording process that things I never knew that I wanted to say, I found myself saying.” This is perhaps the most beautiful component of the album, that it is a product of Rossi’s mind that innately revealed itself in the process of its creation, being such an honest and genuine representation of the self in music.
There’s something very admirable about Decent Colors’ work, and I think it’s the encapsulation of nostalgia, nature and authenticity that shines through the music; it speaks for itself. Now that the record is out for the world to listen to, Decent Colors planned to take it easy for a little while but has quickly been booked to play in both NYC and the local New Paltz area, continuing the momentum of the release. In between all this, Rossi plans to keep writing and begin working on the next record for the project, planning to revisit the recording process this coming summer or fall.
If you missed their performance in town at Snug Harbor on March 19, Rossi implores listeners to come to the next show, stating, “Come with an open mind and open ears. I hope the music finds the people at all, in some meaningful way, like it found me.”
The new LP, “Out of the Shade, Under the Stars” by Decent Colors can be found on all streaming services, and the band can be found on Instagram at @decent.colors