Kevin Bronson on May 2nd, 2020

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Anna Schulze is not known to worship at the temple of the riff, although she can certainly play them. In 2016, the L.A.-based Minnesota native released “Pickford Market,” an album of smart power-pop-cum-indie-rock, and then in 2018 she teamed up with songwriter Maia Sharp in the Americana duo Roscoe & Etta for a sweet album.

Neither quite prepares you for Schulze’s new single “La La La,” a visceral rocker that, perhaps not surprisingly, was made on the fly. It burns like the fuse on a stick of dynamite.

“I love the raw, acoustic-driven songs that tell a story, but I also love some of the unfiltered, even crass, stream-of-consciousness albums of some of my influences (Liz Phair, Sheryl Crow, Yeah Yeah Yeahs),” Schulze says. “The angsty devil on my other shoulder. Guilty, but pleading innocent (‘la la la’ …).”

It took only a few hours and the right guitar in her hands for the song to come to fruition.

“I wrote the song on the last day of a packed two-week Nashville trip with producer/writer Dan Agee, whose publisher Big Yellow Dog set us up,” she says. “I had like three hours between a Roscoe & Etta brunch gig at 3rd and Lindsley and my flight at 7 p.m. He pulled out a vintage Silvertone, and we were cruising. We recorded guitar, bass, percussion, vocals and pretty much everything else with time to spare. The final track was almost exactly what we had initially because what we got in the moment felt so good.”

Schulze calls it “a return to the roots, foreshadow to the future,” so that’s something to look forward to.

||| Stream: “La La La”