Sonically, Rose Haze is all over the map, both live and in the studio. Maximum Security Prism, the band’s third LP, consists of pulse-driven hypnotic dreampop, lush textural shoegaze, sultry psychedelic rock, and soulful expressions.
The white light of the prism refracts different wavelengths to make the rainbow. This album is a testament to flying free in the psychedelic prismic rainbow, living in the light, charging on through tough times, working through the aftermath of toxic relationships without seeking revenge, and feeling beautiful, powerful, and worthy without harboring guilt, especially from a divine feminine perspective.
Kate Ramsey, lead singer, guitarist, and synth player for Rose Haze, writes and composes all of the material for the band. Ruben Valdez Gonzales, lead guitarist for Rose Haze, had an equal role in the production of the new album. Together they tracked, arranged, and mixed the album during the pandemic lockdown in their home studios. They shopped the album around to labels, but after several conversations, decided to remain independent in order to harness their creativity with the release.
The album’s concept began during Kate’s period of deep meditation on Kaua’i in which she intentionally removed herself from the intense life of a working musician to simply take a break, dig into her music on a deeper level, and come back on the scene with a fully recharged spirit.
Once Kate had a clear musical vision and felt strongest in herself, her then partner and best friend who served as her musical mentor both completely betrayed and abandoned her in the same month. Realizing her most trusted friendships were facades, she decided to move to Oakland in 2019. While building a new band in a place where she knew no one, she felt very alone and newly entrapped in a mental glass prison, just after finding peace with so many other former traumas while living the island life. New on the scene in Oakland, she kept her turmoil inside, put together a band in a few months, and wrote song after song to cope with her new onslaught of PTSD that stemmed from bending over backwards for narcissists for so many years.
With time, music, painting, meditation, and getting involved with Oakland communities, Kate transformed the glass prison into a beautiful kaleidoscopic prism in which she stood fully in her feminine power and worth as an empathic artist. It was at this major turning point of spiritual reckoning that she hung prisms all throughout her studio and produced Maximum Security Prism alongside her now best friend and musical collaborator Ruben.
