Blue Rose Code

A British singer-songwriter and alternative folk musician trading as Blue Rose Code, Ross Wilson fuses the evocative songcraft of Van Morrison and John Martyn with the melodic immediacy of Motown. Raised in Edinburgh by his grandmother after being born there, Wilson devoted countless adolescent hours to dodging classes in favor of playing records once he absorbed the sounds of Chet Baker, John Coltrane, and Ray Charles. He soon started writing and tracking his own material, moving to East London to focus more intently on the craft. Operating under the name Blue Rose Code, drawn from an idea in David Lynch’s film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, he assembled pieces that wove together those influences into a personal strain of contemporary alt-folk. His earliest release, the Love/Whitechapel single, surfaced in 2009; shortly afterward he suspended his creative work to confront addictions and overhaul his habits. Through sustained effort, sustained sobriety, and a renewed commitment to performing, he spent the next several years amassing songs while playing regularly in and around London. A deal with the Derby-based indie label Reveal Records yielded the debut EP Julie in 2012 and the Whitechapel EP the next year; 2013 also brought his first full-length, North Ten. After switching to Ronachan Songs he delivered his second album, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, in 2014—an effort that stood as his most ambitious and lyrically candid work to that point and included guest turns from Scottish folk artist Karine Polwart and Aidan O’Rourke of folk outfit Lau. Wilson’s third studio album, And Lo! The Bird Is on the Wing, appeared in 2016 and was followed by a nationwide tour. He returned to Scotland to gather material for his fourth record, Water of Leith, which arrived in fall 2017.