Pressing Concerns: Gaadge, Florry, Computerwife, The Wind-Ups

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It’s another busy week at Rosy Overdrive, capped off by a Pressing Concerns that looks at four records out tomorrow: new albums from Gaadge, Florry, and Computerwife, and a new EP from The Wind-Ups. Early this week, the Rosy Overdrive July 2023 Playlist/Round-Up went live, and I also wrote in-depth about Spirit Night’s Bury the Dead (which is also out tomorrow); check those posts out, too.

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.

Gaadge – Somewhere Down Below

Release date: August 4th
Record label: Crafted Sounds/Michi Tapes
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Nanty Glo

Anyone paying attention to the music coming out of Pittsburgh lately knows that it’s a–maybe the–central hub for everything loud, distorted, and reverb-heavy–and right in the middle of that music scene lies Gaadge. The quartet was founded by Mitch Delong nearly a decade ago and has expanded to include bassist/vocalist Nick Boston, drummer/vocalist Ethan Oliva, and guitarist Andy Yadeski–a lineup that overlaps heavily with the bands Barlow and Ex Pilots, with both of whom Gaadge has put out a split record. 2021’s Yeah? (one of my favorite records of that year) was the sound of Gaadge moving from a Delong solo project into a real-live band, and their sophomore album, Somewhere Down Below, is the sound of them embracing this. Instead of the songs being credited to Delong and sometimes Boston, the record’s fourteen tracks were all “written by Gaadge”, and it certainly feels like a group effort.

For one, Somewhere Down Below is a varied-sounding record–Gaadge equally takes influence from Guided by Voices’ hooky lo-fi basement pop and heavy-duty shoegaze like Lilys and My Bloody Valentine, and the record is also in conversation with the more electronic and experimental version of shoegaze practiced by their present-day peers. The record throws curveballs from the beginning with the atmospheric opener “In Levitation” and the trip hop beat of “No Go”–it takes until “Candy Colored” for the band to launch into a fuzzy noise pop tune that confirms that they still do that quite well. The vocals on the pop-punk-y “Nanty Glo” are surprisingly clean, while the Oliva-led “Don’t Go There” uses little more than a single electric guitar and a Pollard-worthy melody to be a sneaky highlight. Songs like “Mundy’s Corner” keep the shoegaze quotient high, and the torrential “Komarov” is maybe the heaviest the band have sounded, but the surprises are just as frequently on the gentler side, like the nervous bedroom pop of the title track, or Boston’s downcast “Strok”. Somewhere Down Below is the best kind of record from a creative team–one that’s full of ideas, where one can find something new and great with each listen. (Bandcamp link)

Florry – The Holey Bible

Release date: August 4th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Alt-country, country rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: From Where You Are

Philadelphia’s Florry is led by Francie Medosch, who’s been making music under the Florry name since at least 2018, when she was still a teenager, putting out records on labels like Sister Polygon and 12XU. The Holey Bible, the third Florry album, is their first one for Dear Life (following January’s Sweet Guitar Solos EP), and the massive seven-piece group (also featuring guitarist John Murray, bassist Jared Radichel, drummer Joey Sullivan, vocalist Victoria Rose, fiddle player Will Henriksen, and lap steel player Sam Silbert) are gelling into a real (country) rock band on these eleven songs. Medosch is still the songwriter, but Florry isn’t just her show on The Holey Bible–for one, it’s not until the third song on the record that she’s the sole lead vocalist on a track. For another, the band is balanced throughout the record, equally likely to lean into their rock and roll instincts as their earnest country side.

Some of the songs on The Holey Bible have been around for a while (this is the third version of “Big Fall”, by my count), but Florry inject all of them with an energy that helps everything feel fresh and coherent. The casual country rock of “Drunk and High” and “Take My Heart” kick off the record on a welcoming, laid-back note, before tearing into the roaring “Hot Weather”, a display of the band’s full power. The Holey Bible is a loose-feeling record throughout, but it certainly takes craftsmanship to make songs like “Cowgirl in a Ditch” and “Say It Again” sound as carefree and fun as they do. And that’s not even taking into account Medosch’s sharp work as a lyricist and frontperson–certainly present on the upbeat songs, but truly shining when things slow down on the twin six-minute tracks “Big Winter” and “Song for My Art”. The tricky interpersonal situation in the former is engrossing enough, but it’s the latter, where every line feels like it could be taken five different ways, that’s really stuck with me. And then the band closes it with one more excellent country rocker in “From Where You Are”–no matter where Florry roam, something exciting is lurking around the corner. (Bandcamp link)

Computerwife – Computerwife

Release date: August 4th
Record label: Danger Collective
Genre: Shoegaze, noise pop, experimental pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Vacation

New York’s Computerwife is the project of Addie Warncke, who’s been making music under the name since 2018, with Soundcloud demos and a self-released EP culminating in her Danger Collective-released self-titled debut album. Computerwife certainly contains enough fuzz and distortion to qualify as a shoegaze album, but it’s in line with the modern strain of the genre practiced by bands like They Are Gutting a Body of Water and Feeble Little Horse, in which flirtation with electronics and other sources of noise are explored as well. Warncke recorded this album with fairly limited equipment and while still learning how to use Ableton, and there’s a sense of experimentation and discovery in these songs that’s enhanced, not hindered, by Warncke’s work-in-progress attitude.

Just as intriguing as Warncke’s skill with recording is her pop songwriting, and the songs on Computerwife shine at their cores despite whatever sonic collisions are happening around them. “Vacation” opens the album in a surprising bass-led, almost post-punk way, with Warncke’s clear vocals delivering a winning melody. One track later, “You Make It Look So Easy” is full-on distorted fuzziness, but it’s even more of a massive pop song than the one before it. The second half of Computerwife has less immediate hits, but there’s plenty of nonetheless interesting material here–the disorientingly straightforward “I Get Better Everyday” moves into the industrial pop of “Starchild” into the wall-of-sound noise rock of “Eascore”, and the record ends with what I can only describe as a “romp” in “Oops”, a fitting end to the Computerwife experience. (Bandcamp link)

The Wind-Ups – Jonathan Says

Release date: August 4th
Record label: Blue Arrow
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, garage punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Jonathan Says

California lo-fi punk group The Wind-Ups are led by singer-songwriter Jake Sprecher, who has notably been playing as a multi-instrumentalist for Jonathan Richman since 2016, as well as being a member of the bands Smokescreens and Terry Malts. Sprecher struck out on his own in 2021 with the Mt.St.Mtn.-released debut Wind-Ups album, Try Not to Think, on which Sprecher played every instrument. Discounting a split single with The Out-Sect, the four-song Jonathan Says EP is the second Wind-Ups release–coming in at under ten minutes, the songs are again played by Sprecher with a few notable exceptions, but he and these couple of guests make their mark throughout these songs. The Wind-Ups of Jonathan Says are making a racket, but it’s a purposeful one–all four of these songs wind up sounding pretty distinct from one another.

The opening title track to Jonathan Says is indeed inspired by Richman–the song transports us to a Jonathan Richman show (featuring Richman’s partner Nicole Montalbano on tamboura) and Sprecher sneaks in a few Richman titles into the lyrics–and it’s also the record’s biggest power pop moment, as distorted as it may be. “Medusa’s Spell” (a cover of a song originally written by The Electric Pie Band’s Marty Parker) is the seedy, dark tune that explodes into a huge chorus, while the chugging “Coffee Cup” (featuring Jaed Garibaldi on cello) is all speedy simplicity. “Little Boy Blue” ends the EP by probing garage-y no wave/post-punk territory, evoking monotone groups like Public Interest before ending with a sharp guitar solo (played by none other than the EP’s namesake)–hard to come up with a better cap to Jonathan Says. (Bandcamp link)

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