Pressing Concerns: phoneswithBen, Charlène Darling, Ambulanz, Labasheeda

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Rosy Overdrive isn’t done yet! We’re kicking off the second half of December with a brand-new Pressing Concerns featuring new albums from phoneswithchords and Ben Sooy, Charlène Darling, Ambulanz, and Labasheeda. We’ve still got the reissue/compilation list, the results of the Reader’s Poll (still open until Christmas), and at least one more Pressing Concerns to look forward to before you have to get a new calendar.

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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2023 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

phoneswithchords & Ben Sooy – phoneswithBen

Release date: November 17th
Record label: Start-Track
Genre: Slowcore, indie folk, emo-folk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Why Can’t I Slow Down?

Arthur Alligood and Ben Sooy are both accomplished artists in their own right. Sooy has made a name for himself as of late by being one fifth of A Place for Owls, a Denver Pedro the Lion-core emo-indie rock group who released their debut album last year, while Nashville’s Alligood has established himself as part of the Start-Track/Z Tapes world with a handful of releases from his indie/bedroom folk project phoneswithchords. They’ve been on my radar before now, but phoneswithBen, their new album together, is my favorite thing I’ve heard from either of them so far. It’s a truly collaborative record, with both Alligood and Sooy providing instrumentals and vocals, and it feels at once intimately familiar and lost and unpredictable. The mix of aching slowcore, minimalist folk, and subdued piano that populates phoneswithBen is incredibly haunted sounding, and when either of them take the mic (or, in Sooy’s case, the iPhone), it’s completely gripping.

Alligood and Sooy talk about phoneswithBen as if it’s just something that kind of…happened. It truly feels like a natural connection; it’s hard to tell where one’s contributions end and the other’s begin at any point. Alligood and Sooy are both from decidedly non-central upbringings (the former grew up in rural Tennessee, the latter West Virginia), and there’s an out-of-the-way, hidden feeling to these songs that feels perhaps informed by this. Although it’s not primarily an “emo” album, there are traces of it here–on some of the more deliberate, mundanely despairing songs like “Why Can’t I Slow Down?” and “If Time” I hear a bit of Keith Latinen’s Mt. Oriander in the vocals and instrumentals. phoneswithBen does get into some genuinely bleak territory (it’d almost be a shame if they didn’t, given just how perfect this kind of music is for that sort of thing) with the unbearably bright emptiness of “Hell Is Lit with Fluorescent Lights” and the frozen reminiscences of “The Last Thing I Heard”. That being said, phoneswithBen isn’t without a warmer kind of light–the synth touches that Alligood adds to “Shoulder” and “To Be Found” indicate that he’s still burning, and the two of them close the record as one with a cypher in “Love on the Other Side”. (Bandcamp link)

Charlène Darling – La Porte

Release date: November 3rd
Record label: Disciples
Genre: Experimental rock, art pop, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Disparais

Charlotte Kouklia first became known to me as a member of Rose Mercie, a French post-punk/art punk quartet who’ve put out two albums since 2018 (including last year’s ¿Kieres Agua?). However, the Paris-born, Brussels-based Kouklia has also been making music via her solo project, Charlène Darling, for significantly longer–she’s been putting out CD-Rs since the late 2000s, before having something of a breakout with 2019’s Saint-Guidon. The most recent Rose Mercie album is the sound of a band excitedly stretching the limits of punk and indie rock music while still keeping a foot in “pop”, and Kouklia brings a similar energy to La Porte, the latest record from Charlène Darling. Without being constrained by a four-piece rock band, however, Kouklia is even less tethered to reality here–these songs wander and experiment in heedless fashion, but La Porte is never lost in itself.

La Porte throws the gauntlet down early by way of opening with a somewhat-disorienting-to-listen-to voice memo, but eventually relents and welcomes the listener in with the fractured pop music of “Disparais” (reminiscent of a big influence on Kouklia, The Raincoats, as well as modern empty-space-post-punk groups like Nightshift). This probably ends up being La Porte’s most accessible moment, although “Au fleuve” (which plays like a more frantic version of “Disparais”) and “Les gros chevaux” (the most “garage rock” moment on the record, even as it can’t resist cluttering itself with all sorts of interjections) also light up the record’s first half. The song that most prepares the listener for what to expect on the flipside of La Porte is the six-minute, leisurely-plodding “Tout s’efface”; between “Abril Terra”, “Out at Sea”, and “Encore un soir”, Charlène Darling certainly asks for one’s patience multiple times on the album. This patience is rewarded, however–none of these longer songs are the same, with some rising and falling along the way and others hanging on a few notes in search of something greater, sketching out a good summary of La Porte as a whole. (Bandcamp link)

Ambulanz – II

Release date: December 15th
Record label: It’s Eleven
Genre: Garage punk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Slipping

Back in October, I wrote about the latest album from Leipzig, Germany’s Onyon, a fiery declaration that noisy, no wave-y punk rock was alive and well in eastern Germany. Not two months later, another excellent record of garage punk by a Leipzig quartet has landed in my inbox, this one from Ambulanz (led by guitarist/vocalist Felix Bodenstein and also featuring synth player/vocalist Saskia, bassist Jonas, and drummer Claus). II is the group’s second record following a self-titled cassette EP last year–at seven songs and 21 minutes, it’s the band’s biggest statement yet. II is a sharp and straightforward record–it’s quite hooky, although it retains a post-punk edge, it’s “synthpunk” but with a fairly guitar-forward sound, and the band feels loose and unhinged on occasion, but never “sloppy”.

Opening track “Slipping” is perhaps Ambulanz distilled into two minutes–the song begins as your typical shouty egg-post-punk-garage workout, but then Saskia’s synth playing begins to make itself known quite early on, almost functioning in a new wave, hook-delivering way, fighting against the runaway six-string tide. Claus then slips off beat in the chorus, but it doesn’t come off as an accident, but rather a clever way for the band to punctuate Bodenstein’s lyrics (“Reality is slipping!” he barks in the chorus–I can’t make out every line, but he’s a compelling enough lead singer that I can get the gist). The high-flying “Hours” is a layup the band make easily, while they also pull off a detour into more “writhing, angry garage punk” territory with “Labyrinths”–but Ambulanz are only getting started. The rest of the cassette is full of surprises–with “Run Run Run”, they prove they can run headlong into a four-minute song without losing steam, and then they do it again on “Missing C@t”, but add some weirdo Pere Ubu art punk stuff to the mix this time around. The Super Mario synths that start “Race Horse” give way to the most “typical Ambulanz” song on II’s second half, but then they end the tape with a three minute piece of synth-led ambience. It’s a head-scratching conclusion, but by that point, I’m already fully on board the Ambulanz. (Bandcamp link)

Labasheeda – Blueprints

Release date: November 3rd
Record label: Drums & Wires/Presto Chango
Genre: Post-punk, noise rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Sparkle

Labasheeda are an Amsterdam-based trio who are new to me, but apparently have been around awhile–their first album came out back in 2006. Their latest album, Blueprints, is the band’s sixth full-length, and it’s a collection of relatively difficult-to-classify indie rock. The three members of the band (Saskia van der Giessen, Arne Wolfswinkel, and Bas Snabilie) certainly sound like they’ve been playing together for some time now; they move as a single unit throughout Blueprints. Labasheeda shift around to fit these songs–loosely, van der Giessen is the vocalist and violin player, Wolfswinkel the guitarist and bassist, and Snabilie the percussionist, but all three of them play a variety of instruments throughout the record. This is “for the love of the game” indie rock, with hints of noisy 90s Touch & Go/Quarterstick bands, sharp post-punk, and even a bit of post-rock (primarily aided by van der Giessen’s violin), but without neatly slotting into any clearly defined subgenre.

Opening track “Fossils” establishes the core tenets of Labasheeda right off the bat–plodding, prominent post-punk bass, fractured yet melodic lead guitar reminiscent of Archers of Loaf, and van der Giessen’s forceful, dynamic vocals above it all. Blueprints doesn’t veer too far away from this formula, although the trio certainly have plenty of room to maneuver within it–the first half features highlights “Sparkle”, which transforms the band into high-flying, Sebadoh-ish indie rock anthem writers, and the brief, seething “Curiosity”, which puts the band in Come or Geraldine Fibbers territory. Another sign that Labasheeda is a veteran band is their confidence in slowing things down a bit–Side A ends with the marimba-heavy ballad “Vanity”, and the second half features “Tigre Royal” (which needs five minutes to crescendo to its conclusion) and “Volatile” (a slowcore-ish track that never truly takes off). Bands like Labasheeda are destined to be under-the-radar–but you, the person who is reading a virtually unknown music blog in mid-December, certainly know that that’s where the best music is, anyway. (Bandcamp link)

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