Pressing Concerns: Rain Recordings, Virgins, Jay Alan Kay, Squiggly Lines

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The second Pressing Concerns in as many days collects a couple of albums that came out last week (new LPs from Rain Recordings and Virgins) as well as two ace records from last month (an album from Jay Alan Kay and an EP from Squiggly Lines). You won’t be disappointed, and there’s more new music where this came from–if you missed yesterday’s post (featuring Mythical Motors, Bill Baird, Hour, and Trummors), check that one out here.

If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here.

Rain Recordings – Terns in Idle

Release date: April 12th
Record label: Trash Tape
Genre: Emo-y indie rock, 90s indie rock, folk rock
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Piece of Mind

I first heard about Chapel Hill-based imprint Trash Tape Records back in March when they released Night Time Is the Grace Period, the debut album from Atlanta’s Hill View #73. I was quite into that record’s take on lo-fi indie rock, which veered between bedroom folk, bright pop music, and fuzzed-out noisy rock with ease. As it turns out, Trash Tape’s next release wasn’t far behind, as they’re putting out Terns in Idle by Rain Recordings less than a month later. A duo, Rain Recordings is made up of Carrboro-based Evren Centeno (who is one of the three founders of Trash Tape) and Stockholm, Sweden’s Josef Löfvendahl, who met online earlier this decade and began collaborating remotely together not long after. These remote collaborations became Rain Recordings’ first album, Artificial Night, and the next step was for the duo to record together in person, which they did last year at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with Lawson Alderson. The resultant record, Terns in Idle, still contains plenty of the underground 90s indie rock influence that seems to mark Trash Tapes, although the duo do take advantage of a proper studio to develop and expand these songs–guest musicians such as clarinet player Eilee Centeno and cellist Clara Lampkin aid in this, but Rain Recordings’ core duo is equally ready to make the step forward.

I’m sure Ceneno and Löfvendahl have spent a good deal of time with essential 90s indie rock groups like Modest Mouse and Built to Spill, but given that they didn’t experience this era of music firsthand (the former of 19, the latter 28), Terns in Idle perhaps unsurprisingly isn’t entirely devoted to Pacific Northwest guys with ornery guitars. Throughout the record, there’s also some Neutral Milk Hotel-ish folk ambition, as well as the earnest, wide-eyed 2000s version of indie rock mixed in (and maybe even a big of emo, although that might be more parallel thinking). There are distorted guitars, but Terns in Idle is too big to be covered entirely in fuzz–just in the first track, “2D Trance”, where clear, ringing piano, Lampkin’s cello, and even trumpet guide the song to a huge, cathartic crescendo. A lot of songs on Terns in Idle start with a relatively hushed, restrained beginning–from the fuzzy folk of “Stars Inside” to the Elephant 6-curious modest pop of “Piece of Mind” to “I’ll Be Be the Air” and “Eye Games”, two songs that mark the middle of the record with pin-drop quiet introductions. All of these songs (and, effectively, every song on the record) excitedly build to something huge and all-in, however–it’s certainly an ambitious record, and while I suspect that Ceneno and Löfvendahl could’ve made something impressive on their own, the studio, production, and guests all help drag Terns in Idle even higher. (Bandcamp link)

Virgins – Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful

Release date: April 11th
Record label: Blowtorch
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: S o f t e r

Virgins are a “deafening dream pop” band out of Belfast, Ireland–the quintet (vocalist Rebecca Dow, guitarists Michael Smyth and David Sloan, drummer James Foy, and bassist Brendy McCann) debuted with a couple of singles in 2021 which culminated in late 2022’s Transmit a Little Heaven EP. A year and a half later, the debut Virgins full-length, Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful, has arrived, and it’s a strong and commanding debut album. Equally close to Cocteau Twins and Smashing Pumpkins, Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful is a loud and quite catchy song-first shoegaze record; the band are defined both by Dow’s soaring melodies and Foy and McCann’s hard-hitting alt-rock rhythm section. And, of course, Smyth and Sloan’s wall-of-sound guitars are in front of it all, balancing brute force and intricate pop construction just as the band as a whole do. The eight songs on Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful are all very fleshed-out–half the songs are over five minutes long, and only one is under four–and it’s both the sturdy pop cores and the all-in energy that the band bring to the performances that carry us through the record at high speed.

The pounding, alt-rock indebted “s o f t e r” kicks Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful off with a bang–the rhythm section hammers their way through the verses and then hands the reins over to Dow just as the huge chorus takes off like a rocket ship. “S l o w l y, l o n g” and “c l o s e” both keep the foot on the gas in the record’s first half, with Dow still peaking out over the surging, noisy instrumentals to keep the pop side of Virgins intact. The six-minute “P a l e f i r e” closes out the first half with a lumbering piece of distorted but hypnotic rock music, setting the tone for a B-side that’s a little less immediate but still finds time for noisy pop moments. “A d o r e” takes its time traveling through its valleys and peaks of fuzz, while Dow slides a bit closer to the front of the mix in “D i s a p p e a r e r”, the biggest pop song on this side of Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful and perhaps the one that most clearly illustrates just how strong the vocals are throughout the record. “T e n d” closes the record with another clearer Dow performance–but it’s a big and expansive enough song that there’s plenty of key moments in the instrumentals as well. Nothing Hurt and Everything Was Beautiful is the work of a balanced band on equal footing, and their combined might is enough to make the album stand out in the shoegaze crowd. (Bandcamp link)

Jay Alan Kay – Songs Before Work

Release date: March 8th
Record label: Setterwind
Genre: Lo-fi power pop, singer-songwriter, alt-country
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Another Turn

Towards the end of Closer You Are: The Story of Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices, the book’s author, Matthew Cutter, quotes the infamously prolific songwriter about his daily routine: “When I get up in the morning, the cats get excited. I make some coffee, I might write a song…Morning’s the best thing”. It’s hard not to think of that philosophy when listening to Songs Before Work, the debut album from Jay Alan Kay (aka Jason Kotarski). Kotarski is a librarian from Grand Rapids, Michigan who also plays in the punk rock band Singing Lungs (they put out a solid record back in 2023), but Jay Alan Kay is his first step out as a solo act. Both in work ethic–these songs were recorded on a Tascam 238 cassette in Kotarski’s basement before going to his day job–and in sound–lo-fi power pop, with just a bit of twang and the punk rock of his main band also discernible–Songs Before Work clearly belongs in the “indebted to Guided by Voices” world, but having good taste only gets one so far. The first Jay Alan Kay record is full of strong pop songs, simply adorned and enthusiastically delivered, that feel like the work of someone freshly inspired.

Songs Before Work is a rich and generous album–it’s thirteen songs and nearly 45 minutes long, but feels consistent and lacking in filler. “Another Turn” is a huge opening statement, a brimming-with-hooks college rock anthem that pulls from classic R.E.M. and early Guided by Voices gleefully. It sets the bar high early on, although in terms of pure sugary catchiness, I’d put both “Give It a Go” and “Astronaut” up there with it (and the messy, slapdash power pop of the latter in particular walks a very difficult tightrope between looseness and punchiness). There’s a Two Cow Garage-y Midwestern roots rock charm to Kotarski’s songwriting in “Minivan”, and “A Loyal Friend” is some crunchy rural rock and roll (“Thick and thin, you were the loyal friend / The dog wouldn’t let the emergency services in”), while late-record highlight “Happy New Year” is a late-night oversharing session. The brief, one-minute “I Saw GBV” makes the Robert Pollard influence explicit, inspired by seeing the band live for the first time at their 40th anniversary celebration. “I can’t make up for this lost time, but I’m sure coming home,” Kotarski declares, sounding ready to wake up the next morning and get to work. (Bandcamp link)

Squiggly Lines – Dead Deer

Release date: March 15th
Record label: Sun Bear
Genre: Fuzz rock, lo-fi indie rock, garage rock, experimental rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: I Don’t Really Care and That Bothers Me

Toronto singer-songwriter Rob McLay has appeared in Pressing Concerns before both as the drummer of folk rock group Westelaken and via his quasi-solo project, Squiggly Lines, which retains some of Westelaken’s expansive, folk-y sound but features more genre-hopping than that band. Last year’s Re: Love Songs LP pulled bright bedroom pop, intimate acoustic folk music, and electric indie rock into a coherent package–and while the typically prolific McLay spent a few years pulling that full-length record together, he’s only waited a few months before returning with a brand new five song EP under the Squiggly Lines moniker. Released via Sun Bear (McLay’s own imprint, which he also uses to put out a host of side projects), Dead Deer is somehow both looser and more singularly-focused than its predecessor. Rather than relying on a host of guest contributions, McLay’s only help on this EP is Westelaken’s Alex Baigent and Cootie Catcher’s Nolan Jakupovski–subsequently, Squiggly Lines sounds more like a garage rock band quickly running through a handful of fuzzed-out rock songs instead of an art pop project here.

Quick delivery and fast tempos abound on Dead Deer, but Squiggly Lines have nothing to hide here–the songwriting on this EP is just as strong as on Re: Love Songs despite the “tossed off” vibes that McLay and company give the record. “I Don’t Really Care and That Bothers Me” is an excellent piece of slightly distorted, hooky indie rock that goes full noise-pop towards its end–still getting the job done in under two minutes. “Dead Soon” wrings a bit more drama out of the same basic tools, with the loud guitars starting and stopping, veering from a shoegaze-y wall-of-sound to an empty cavern and back again. The middle of Dead Deer is where Squiggly Lines do actually find a little bit of time to slow things down and probe just a bit beyond their chosen sound–“Thought About Givin’ You a Call One Rainy Day” is downcast, distorted bedroom rock that lumbers through an instrumental matching the dreary weather conjured up by its title, while “Freaky Friday” is pin-drop quiet, with minimal music and whispered vocals, up until it finally lets loose with a giant finish–a looseness that continues into the closing track, the kind-of-punchy, shuffling indie rock of “Revenge on Something”. It’s one last hit in a record that provides several of them, plus a little bit extra. (Bandcamp link)

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