Pressing Concerns: Be Safe, Loto, Zowy, Capsuna

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As we enter into the second half of January, the end-of-year dead zone is trickling into what looks to be a busy February. Today’s post rounds up a few odds and ends from the first couple weeks of the year: new albums from Be Safe and Capsuna, and new EPs from Loto and Zowy. This is a weird one, and a strong one.

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.

Be Safe – Unwell

Release date: January 19th
Record label: Count Your Lucky Stars
Genre: 90s indie rock, slowcore, emo
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Axe Falls

Frostburg, Maryland is decidedly not considered a hotbed for emo and indie rock (I think The Trend are the only band from there I’d ever written about before now), but don’t tell that to the members of Be Safe, all of whom have been making music in Appalachian Maryland for some time now. Guitarist/vocalist Matt Wojcik has played in fourth-wave emo band (and OG Count Your Lucky Stars signees) Perfect Future, as well as post-hardcore group Jorne and West Virginia power pop punks Aloner. Be Safe bassist Shane Sours also played in Jorne and guitarist Geoff Minnear was also a part of Aloner, while drummer BJ Lewis is most notable for playing in folk rock group Page France (whose frontman Michael Nau has gone on to have a successful solo career). Together, the four of them make something of a Maryland panhandle supergroup, creating a new sound that isn’t quite like any of their previous projects. Unwell is closest to the more contemplative moments of Perfect Future, taking a trip back to the late 1990s and visiting the intersection of thorny but oddly tranquil math rock, chilly emo, vintage slowcore, and the golden era of basement indie rock.

Unwell doesn’t exactly come barreling out of the gate, but there’s still something engrossing about opening track “Thursday, 9 AM”. Fans of downcast, Numero Group-adjacent 90s indie rock will be immediately hooked by it, with gorgeous guitars lightly fluttering around lyrics that make me want to commit the music writer sin of calling them “confessional” (“I’m still in therapy, working on my DBT…I hope you’re still proud of me”). Unwell does “rock” on occasion, but Be Safe rarely ride this side of them for an entire song–“In the House” starts off as mid-tempo alt-rock before drifting off into itself, while “Ghosts” takes off halfway through its probing instrumental. The band’s ability to sharpen their sound a bit makes the quieter moments of Unwell hit even harder–the instrumental outro to “Axe Falls”, coming after some all-in emo-rock in its first half, feels like the aftermath of its own title. Albums like Unwell, the ones that already feel like hidden discoveries, have plenty of nooks and crannies within themselves–once you make it past the dramatic, six-minute “Dark Cloud”, the two closing songs, the title track and “Without Love”, are the band at their most subtle and also their best. While Unwell hit immediately for me, I’d imagine it’d take some time to grow on others–whatever the record needs from you to get there, I recommend giving it. (Bandcamp link)

Loto – A Year in Review

Release date: January 12th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock, bedroom pop, folk rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: The House That I Grew Up In

Loto is Lautaro Akira Martinez-Satoh, a Montreal-based musician who appears to be pretty busy as of late. Their Bandcamp page lists several projects–in addition to Loto, they’ve also made music as HJKHLHL, BlueTintedGlass, and Purple Chank, and they’re a member of the bands Death As It Shook You and Antenna93 to boot. They’ve already put out two releases this year, a 20-minute ambient/experimental piece called “This Deserves No Title or Fanfare” and A Year in Review, a four-song EP that, according to Loto, sums up their 2023 (“It sucked”). Despite such a dour point of origin, A Year in Review is a quite beautiful record, even as a close reading of Loto’s lyrics reveal images of torment, despair, and pain among their lo-fi but full-sounding pop music. Assisted by contributions from Sean Hoss (soprano sax), Monty Cime (theatre organ), and Alma (djembe, cassette dubbing, “screaming”), Loto pull together a small but substantial collection of music that’s surprising and all-over-the-place but quite accessible when it wants to be.

A Year in Review was initially to be a two-song single featuring “Age of Slop” and “I’m Never Coming Back”; “Another Future” and “The House That I Grew Up In” were written while waiting for Alama’s contributions to be completed. Perhaps because I’m aware of this, the outer two and inner two songs seem to connect with each other–the middle of the EP is more lo-fi and folk/rock based, while the opening and closing tracks are a bit more experimental and “art pop”. That being said, “Age of Slop” and “I’m Never Coming Back” approach this in different ways–the former takes a pop core and gives it a dreamy, submerged-sounding coat to make it more ephemeral-seeming, while the latter is friendly bedroom pop for its first half before transitioning to an ambient conclusion. In between these songs, “Another Future” is a surprisingly smooth-sounding take on baroque saxophone-heavy indie folk, while “The House That I Grew Up In” is a charging, lo-fi indie fuzz rocker. Both of these feel intricate and beautiful despite feeling quite haunted lyrically (“Sell me another future, where I can feel more safe,” Loto pleads in the former, and they pointedly refused to even print the lyrics for the latter), although one hopes that the declaration of no return in the title of the closing track is a portent of a 2024 that sucks less. (Bandcamp link)

Zowy – Beware Magical Thinking

Release date: January 12th
Record label: Lost Sound Tapes
Genre: Synthpop, art pop, experimental pop, indie pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Beware Magical Thinking

Rhode Island’s Zoë Wyner spent the second half of the 2010s making loud but hooky indie rock with Halfsour, keeping one foot in the world of indie pop and another in thorny, noisy New England rock (they were/are a band that could release records on both Fire Talk and Jigsaw and not sound out of place on either). Wyner also released a one-off EP as part of Temporary Eyesore in 2018, a duo with Catylyn Finlay that allowed Wyner to embrace a more casual, quieter sound while still remaining in the realm of lo-fi indie rock. The Temporary Eyesore record was put out by Lost Sound Tapes, who are also releasing Beware Magical Thinking, Wyner’s debut solo record (as “Zowy”) and the first new music from her in any form in nearly a half-decade. Aside from a couple of instrumental contributions from Big Nice Studio/Courtney and Brad’s Brad Krieger (who also mixed and mastered the cassette), everything on this four-song EP was written, performed, and recorded by Wyner herself, and it represents a pretty big departure from her typical styles of music.

As Zowy, Wyner embraces electronics and synths in a way that her previous bands didn’t even really hint at, although Beware Magical Thinking remains accessible both due to her strong pop songwriting and due to how similarly Wyner seems to approach making guitar- and synth-based music. There’s a rock band exuberance and energy to be found within these four songs–the drum machine backbeats are hard-hitting, not in a cold, industrial way but rather a punchy rock-and-roll kind of way, and the synths rise and fall and drop in and out like guitar leads would. Speaking of guitars, six-strings aren’t exactly absent from Beware Magical Thinking–Krieger punctuates the bubbling electronica of “Found” with a remarkable solo, and the title track marches forward alongside some dreamy guitar playing that works well alongside swooning synths. Just as strong a link to Wyner’s previous work is the big pop song moments throughout the EP, particularly in the trudging, busy “Harbored” and the mid-tempo, flagging but still incredibly memorable title track. Even though Beware Magical Thinking is under fifteen minutes in length, it still takes its time–the vocals in “Beware Magical Thinking” take nearly a minute to kick in, and it’s nearly two in “Found”. It’s worth sticking around to hear them though, and, after a while, you might find yourself appreciating the lo-fi chamber pop instrumental introduction of the title track just as much as the rest of it. (Bandcamp link)

Capsuna – Capsuna

Release date: January 1st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, fuzz pop, dream pop, lo-fi indie rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Asymmetrical

I have to credit Add to Wantlist for bringing this one to my attention; I do love a blog that doesn’t take time off in late December and early January. Capsuna are a Brussels-based indie rock group formed by former Cincinnati resident David Enright (guitar/vocals), who’s amassed a five-piece band since moving to Belgium–lead vocalist Louise Crosby, drummer Moria Crowley, bassist Pierre Meremans, and guitarist/keyboardist Damien Rixhon. There’s been a steady drip of Capsuna material for the past few months–an EP last September, singles in November and December, culminating in a self-titled debut cassette that arrived on New Year’s Day. The first ten Capsuna songs are vintage guitar-forward indie pop at its best, with Crosby’s vocals maximizing these songs’ melodies over top of instrumentals that can be somewhat charmingly fuzzy and lo-fi, but not overwhelming so. Capsuna comes off as a more barebones version of poppy French indie rock bands like En Attendant Ana, EggS, and Hobby, with a pop ambition stretching beyond their guitar/bass/drums setup.

The garage-y “Asymmetrical” kicks off Capsuna with arguably its loudest moment, but the distorted guitars chug along to a catchy pop song progression, an aspect of the cassette that only gets more pronounced with the melancholic indie pop of “Methdreams” one song later. Somewhat muted but still memorable guitar riffs mark these ten songs, from the stop-start beginning of “Horrorscope” to the subtly triumphant Flying Nun-esque intro to “Le Toit”. The first half of Capsuna is fairly strong, but the back end of it might be more consistently impressive (which is a good sign for the band’s future–the cassette is sequenced chronologically, with the older, previously-released songs in the front). Two of the strongest tracks on the record are found towards the conclusion of Capsuna–the acoustic, dreamy jangle pop of “Sync With” (which reminds me a bit of Singaporean indie pop group Subsonic Eye) and the rainy but nevertheless toe-tapping “Storm”. Capsuna are now solidly in my “band to watch” pile; I’m interested in hearing their next ten songs. (Bandcamp link)

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