Pressing Concerns: Two Two Seven, Flowertown, Robert Poss, Fur Trader

Posted byrosyoverdrivePosted inPressing ConcernsTags:, , , , , , , ,

Welcome to a Tuesday Pressing Concerns! The blog’s quest to cover the ridiculous amount of new music that came out last week continues, as today we’re looking at brand new albums from Flowertown and Fur Trader plus a new compilation from Prefect Records, all of which came out last week (and for good measure, we’ve got a new album from Robert Poss that came out back in January). If you missed yesterday’s post, featuring Sonny Falls, Daniel Romano’s Outfit, Grass Jaw, and Nervous Twitch, check that 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.

Various Artists – Two Two Seven

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Prefect
Genre: Indie pop, jangle pop, C86, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Fall of Sweet Pea

Last year I wrote about a compilation from Prefect Records called 14, which featured contributions from fourteen different modern indie pop groups–some of which I’d heard of before, some of them were new to me, but both camps contributed excellent jangle pop, power pop, twee, and/or dream pop to the record. If I’d made something that successful, I’d certainly consider putting together a sequel, and that’s what Prefect have done a year later with Two Two Seven, a new fifteen-song vinyl compilation. Featuring almost an entirely different roster than 14 (the only repeat contributor is longtime Prefect band Mt. Misery), Two Two Seven functions as a “snapshot” of 2023 in the indie pop world. All of these songs are making their debut on vinyl–some had previously been released on cassette, some are demos of songs expected to be included on future records, and some were recorded exclusively for this compilation. A couple of these tracks (from Wandering Summer and Sweet Nobody) I’ve already covered during their initial release, but considering there’s an even greater amount of new material from bands I like and new-to-me acts, I don’t mind a couple of repeats on the blog here.

A few of the bands that have made some of the best pop music of the past couple years debut new songs here–Whitney’s Playland come roaring in with the rainy fuzz pop of “Scheme”, recorded specifically for Two Two Seven, The Laughing Chimes’ “He Never Finished the Thought” (a demo for their next full-length) continues the band’s recent exploration of more dream poppy material while still keeping a foot in jangly college rock, and The Smashing Times and Special Friend also submit previews of records slated to follow up albums I previously enjoyed. There’s a bit of personnel overlap among some of the familiar faces on the record, especially when it comes to Bay Area pop scene–Mike Ramos’ Tony Jay and Katiana Mashikian’s Mister Baby both contribute exclusive songs, but there’s also a previously-released song from the band they’re in together, April Magazine. The new-to-me acts hold their own against the heavyweights, but the two that stick out the most are “The Fall of Sweet Pea” by Tossing Seed and “Ridicule” by The Wendy Darlings. The latter is a bouncy, Boyracer-ish indie-pop-punk tune sung in French (it’ll be out on a record later this year), and the former is a wistful piece of slightly fuzzy pop rock out of Indonesia that reminds me a little bit of the only other indie pop band I know from that region, Singapore’s Subsonic Eye (note to self: do some research on south Pacific indie rock sometime this year). Two Two Seven certainly did its job as a vehicle to get me excited about some new bands and new releases, and it’s a solid collection of songs to have on its own in the meantime. (Bandcamp link)

Flowertown – Tourist Language

Release date: February 29th
Record label: Paisley Shirt
Genre: Indie pop, dream pop, slowcore, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Tourist Language

Flowertown are at the dead center of a certain kind of guitar pop music. Michael Ramos and Karina Gill have both been covered on this blog before for their Tony Jay and Cindy projects, respectively, and I also wrote about Flowertown’s last record, 2022’s Half Yesterday (and, if you scroll up just a bit, you’ll see that Tony Jay appeared on the Prefect Records compilation, too). Ramos and Gill both fall on the quieter side of the Bay Area indie pop scene, but they’ve got distinct styles–Cindy is more grounded and slowcore-based, Tony Jay a bit more dreamy and floating. The molasses-slow, dreamy jangle pop of Half Yesterday fell somewhere in the middle of the two, with Gill and Ramos’ writing melting together in a way where it isn’t so simple to pick out the more “Cindy” moments or “Tony Jay” ones. I’m not sure which Flowertown album we’re on (do we count the Flowertown EP compilation as a full-length? Is the eight-song, 21-minute Half Yesterday an EP or LP?), but there’s a lot of it already–Ramos and Gill have clearly found something in their collaborations. Given how active Cindy and Tony Jay have been of late, it’s no surprise that it took them a couple of years to follow up Half Yesterday, but Tourist Language finds the duo picking up where they left off and putting together some of the strongest material either of them have made yet.

Typical of Flowertown, Tourist Language doesn’t hold your hand as it jumps into “00”, a delicate guitar pop song that isn’t quite as spaced-out as some Tony Jay openers but is still pretty ramshackle. There are plenty of charms to be found here, namely in Gill and Ramos’ shared vocals, and the crackling “Bye Bye Barry” continues the record’s low-key beginning. The upbeat jangle pop of the title track feels like a jolt of energy compared to what preceded it, the duo hammering out something that keeps the center of Flowertown intact while still delivering an instrumental that works with the (for them, at least) brisk drumbeat. Flowertown go full-tilt pop rock again in “The Ring”, while “No Good Trying” is a kind of hypnotically disjointed lo-fi pop that feels like an intriguing detour for the band. There may be a slightly higher percentage of the more immediate side of the band on Tourist Language, but they close the record by returning to their roots and putting together the beautiful, minimal pop of “Bitter Orange”–you have to really listen to it to hear just how brilliant it is, but if you’ve been following Flowertown, you know by now to hand them your full attention. (Bandcamp link)

Robert Poss – Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust

Release date: January 25th
Record label: Trace Elements
Genre: Shoegaze, post-rock, ambient, drone, fuzz rock
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Secrets, Chapter and Verse

Robert Poss is notable to a certain subset of indie rock fans as the vocalist and guitarist of New York group Band of Susans, who put out five records of loud, fuzzed-out music between 1986 and 1996–admittedly I’m not the most familiar with them, but I suspect that, with shoegaze being as popular as it is right now, their discography deserves a closer look. Of course, Poss never went away, and he’s put out a decent amount of solo records since Band of Susans broke up on his own label, Trace Elements (in addition to working with composers Nicolas Collins and Phill Niblock and Bruce Gilbert of Wire, among others). Poss has remained busy, but Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust appears to be the musician’s first proper solo album since 2018 Frozen Flowers Curse the Day, and its title is an apt one. It’s a sprawling collection of music dedicated to the recently-deceased Niblock, and it indeed finds Poss balancing the blown-out rock and roll of his most well-known work with the more experimental, droning music that he’s explored in recent years.

At sixteen songs and 54 minutes, Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust has plenty of time for all three such things–and it opens with a particularly exciting display of the second one. “Secrets, Chapter and Verse” kicks off the album with chugging power chords and a triumphant melody, transforming into a winning piece of fuzz-rock that’s shockingly immediate. The next few tracks on the record are perhaps either “drones” or “fairy dust”, but they’re different strains–“More Snow Is Falling” deals in pleasingly rolling post-rock guitars and ambient soundscapes, “Out of the Fairy Dust” is half lost organs and half jaunty instrumental psychedelic pop rock, and “Foghorn Lullaby” is exactly what it sounds like based on its title. Given my own personal taste, it’s not surprising that I’m drawn to the moments on the record where Poss proves he’s still an excellent rock musician (like the blaring “Your Adversary”, the rumbling “Skibbereen Drive”, the shredding “Hagstrom Fragment”, and the hazy but catchy “It’s Always Further Than It Seems”), although the less “rock” moments on Drones, Songs and Fairy Dust eventually start to feel like more than just interludes in between them. “Trem 23” and “Memory Reposed” are both engrossing instrumentals, for instance, and they do a good job of wrapping up a record made by someone who still has a lot to say. (Bandcamp link)

Fur Trader – Executionland

Release date: March 1st
Record label: Against All Odds
Genre: Folk rock, psychedelic pop, chamber pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Exit Signs

I first heard Los Angeles’ Fur Trader last year, when the project (led by singer-songwriter Andrew Pelletier) put out the five-song Stuck in the Aching Again EP, a brief collection of Sufjan Stevens-ish lightly orchestral indie folk. To be perfectly honest, that record didn’t stick with me at all, but the description for Pelletier’s follow-up, the Executionland LP, sounded interesting enough that I gave Fur Trader another try–and I’m glad that I did, because this album feels like a step forward in every way for the musician. On Executionland, Fur Trader is still taking inspiration from Sufjan, but it’s an expansion of the project’s sound as well–Pelletier ups both the “psych” and “pop” sides of his sound, creating a rich baroque pop album that conjures up everything from the more refined side of Elephant 6 groups like Beulah, Olivia Tremor Control, and of Montreal to Elliott Smith to Sparklehorse to chamber pop bands like Flotation Toy Warning. Executionland’s songwriting is undeniable, and its performances are humble but still quite commanding.

Executionland starts off perfectly with “Exit Signs”, a gorgeous piece of piano pop that could’ve come from any time between the mid-1960s and now and lets us know that we’re in for something catchy and curious beyond its indie folk foundation. The brief “HBD Clover” is a throwback to Fur Trader’s more sparse, acoustic sound, but in this context it functions as a bridge between more fleshed-out tracks like the sunny, deceptively-busy “Witching Hour” and the sleepy psych-country of “I Bought You a Bird”. Executionland is a brief record (around 24 minutes long), but it feels like a full statement, rising and falling between stripped-down but tightly-written folk (like second half highlight “Little Green”) and jaunty psychedelic pop (the two-minute, Jon Brion-y “Steppin’ on Mines”). “St. Katherine of the Angels” is something of the record’s climax, a piano ballad that swoons into a big, orchestral finish before the organ-led “Four Days Dead” ends Executionland with a benediction or epilogue of sorts. As low-key as Fur Trader come off, Executionland does everything you’d want a record like this to do–it grabs your attention immediately and never loses it. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

Leave a comment