Pressing Concerns: Silo’s Choice, Casual Technicians, A Country Western, Conor Lynch

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This Friday (March 29th) is a great week for new releases! Four of them are featured below (new albums from Silo’s Choice, Casual Technicians, A Country Western, and Conor Lynch), and you can expect some more of them to show up on the blog in the coming weeks, too. In the meantime, these should be more than enough to keep everyone occupied, and if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Villagerrr, Gibson & Toutant, Sucker, and Andrew Collberg) or Tuesday’s (Coffin Pricks, Steve Drizos, Soft Screams, and dreamTX), check those 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.

Silo’s Choice – Languid Swords

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Folk rock, prog-folk, art folk, new age
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Last Days of Gaddafi

Silo’s Choice is a guy named Jon Massey, who for the past dozen years or so has been putting out records under this name, beginning in Cincinnati and continuing through his move to Chicago a few years ago. I first heard Massey’s music via 2022’s Priorities USA, an intriguing blend of folk music, electronica, and swooping indie rock, but the first record of his that truly blew me away was last year’s Our Lady of Perpetual Health, which was a collaboration between Massey and Mike Fox (Arthhur, Flesh of the Stars) released under the name Coventry. That album’s experimental yet accessible take on Chicago indie folk rock a la Drag City ended up being one of my favorite LPs of the year, and so I’m pleased to see that Massey is back with another Silo’s Choice album a few months later. Priorities USA and Our Lady of Perpetual Health both showcased the more bite-sized, pop-friendly side of Massey’s songwriting–Languid Swords takes a different approach, but to no less impressive ends. 

Built largely around meandering acoustic guitar playing and upright bass, the seven-song, 40-minute album backs up the John Fahey influence that Massey cited when he emailed me about Languid Swords–this music takes its time and isn’t overly concerned with offering up pop hooks immediately (and that’s not even taking into account the bonus hour of new age music that comes with a digital purchase of the album). Massey’s lyric-writing–which often finds him writing about thorny geopolitics with a frightening lucidity, as well as featuring a noticeable interest in public transportation–has gotten him compared to Emperor X, but the music, which embraces the Thrill Jockey-curious side of Coventry, makes it pretty clear that Massey is moving to his own, unique beat. That being said, Massey’s vocals and lyrics are the clearest link to his past work on Languid Swords, and when the album does indulge in pop music, it’s on Massey’s own terms, as it’s always been. I don’t want to overstate how inaccessible Languid Swords is–for instance, the six-minute opening track “Last Days of Gaddafi” is actually a quite gripping opener, a surging piece of folk rock where the mundanity of Massey’s writing is actually the ballast, fighting against the soaring instrumental and the context of the song’s title. 

The middle of the record is where Massey offers up a couple of “normal-length” songs, but that doesn’t mean that they’re any less developed than the opening track or the seven-minute “The Moon Is Always Out in Rio Nido” that follows it–the three minute pop balladry of “Window of Confusion” in particular is a highlight (“I was selling arms to both sides, was giving their guys high fives / I was coming out on top of it, I was on my State Department shit”), but the deceptively-slight-feeling “Patriotic Bookstores” merits a closer look of its own, too. The record comes to a head with the lengthy semi-title track that closes the album proper–like the opening song, however, “The Ballad of the Languid Sword” also contains some of the record’s most memorable “pop” moments. Over a sparkling yet traditional-leaning indie pop instrumental, Massey sings “When I drink wine, the king must drink rainwater / When I eat caviar, the tsar must eat horse butter,” and this comes after a line about mummifying Silicon Valley “tech guys” alive. This is but one small section of a world-containing song that burns and smolders for over nine minutes, but to me it’s a key one–it’s emblematic of the power of the arsenal of Languid Swords that Massey has amassed. (Bandcamp link)

Casual Technicians – Casual Technicians

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Repeating Cloud
Genre: Lo-fi pop, bedroom pop, psychedelic pop, prog-pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Four Corners

I’ve written about Log Across the Washer–the solo project of Portland, Oregon-originating, New Jersey-based Tyler Keene–a few times on this blog before, because Log Across the Washer are very good. Keene’s take on lo-fi bedroom pop is one that hides pop songs in unexpected corners, making him one of the more interesting modern makers of the genre. Before moving across the country, Keene co-led a band called And And And with Nathan Baumgartner–Baumgartner soldiered on without Keene for a bit, but ended the project a few years ago. Casual Technicians marks the reunion of the two, along with a third creative force–Boone Howard, another Portland expat who once led The We Shared Milk and now lives on a farm in upstate New York. Recorded on said farm, the self-titled Casual Technicians debut album is a perfectly imperfect melding of three distinct pop weirdos.

You can tell the Casual Technicians apart by their voices (the press info helpfully states that Baumgartner is the higher voice, Howard the lower one, and Keene the one in between); they switch the lead quite frequently, which for them seems to be just one more way for them to veer and swerve through these nineteen songs. I don’t know if Casual Technicians is more accessible than Log Across the Washer, but its weirdness feels more approachable and communal–instead of one person veering into strange waters alone in his basement, the Technicians are never not building something together as a unit. Musically, it’s in the same ballpark–lo-fi, a little psychedelic, plenty of pop. Beach Boys and Elephant 6 comparisons are warranted, and I also hear the delicate oddness of Sparklehorse and Grandaddy–hell, the barn even brings out a little Neil Young in “Fake Farmer Blues” and “Heartfelt Sentiments”. The stitched-together feeling reminds me of a more off-the-wall version of one of my favorite albums from last year, Coventry’s Our Lady of Perpetual Health [Note: I wrote this before I found out this album would be sharing a blog post with a Coventry-related release. Nice!]. 

Although the record has an incredibly strong start (in addition to the previously-mentioned two songs, “Lucy in the Dark” is one of the best pop tunes I’ve heard this year quite easily), the second half of Casual Technicians is its secret weapon. If you’re not attuned to the Technicians’ frequencies, I could see someone getting lost in a 47-minute, 19-track album where every song has about three songs’ worth of ideas in them, but if you stick around, you’re rewarded with the band at their gear-switching, prog-pop energetic best in “Four Corners”, and the effortless, sunny “Dingman’s Ferry” takes its time to get to its final sum. The group also hides some subtler gems towards the end with “On a Trip to Nowhere” and “Eggshells”, which find the band a lot more “pensive” than “rowdy”. Then again, “Main Street” is also one of the quieter songs on the album, but that doesn’t stop Casual Technicians from delivering perhaps the record’s most memorable one-liner (“Main Street was not open before the war / It opened in 1780, or 1860-something”). So it goes with the Casual Technicians, a band and album that lives up to its name. (Bandcamp link)

A Country Western – Life on the Lawn

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Crafted Sounds
Genre: Shoegaze, fuzz rock, alt-rock, lo-fi indie rock, noise pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: The Dreamer

I first encountered A Country Western when they released a split EP with They Are Gutting a Body of Water in 2022, and their contributions to that record served as a pretty good summation of what the Philadelphia shoegaze band had been doing up until that point, merging the experimental, non-rock influences that have been emblematic of the recent Philly shoegaze scene with lo-fi but catchy fuzzed-out noise pop. That being said, Life on the Lawn, their third album and first release since the An Insult to the Sport split, surprised me quite a bit. The album feels different from the very first track, but I distinctly remember driving and getting to the third song, “The Dreamer”, and being blown away by how well it worked as music to listen to with the sun out and the windows rolled down. Life on the Lawn is A Country Western at their biggest–the guitars are louder, the songs embrace rock music with hardly a shred of self-consciousness, and more than a few big hooks abound. It might be the closest we get to a Gen Z version of Mezcal Head. The genre of music named after people staring at their feet isn’t supposed to sound like this, but don’t tell that to A Country Western, who’ve just put together an incredibly confident and cool-sounding record.

It’s not quite as radio-friendly as “The Dreamer”, but opening track “Great Is the Grip of the Hawk” certainly rivals that one in terms of pure fireworks. In under two minutes, it defines Life on the Lawn with a giant instrumental hook, power chord-featuring alt-rock verses, and a big adrenaline-fuzz-rock finish. The four-minute “Sidewalk” isn’t quite as antsy, but it still has plenty of excellent riffs and guitarwork to bridge the gap between the two previously-mentioned songs, and guest vocals from Samira Winter of Winter add a chilly heavy dream pop feel to “How Far” in the middle of the record. Life on the Lawn isn’t all punchy noise-punk stuff, but every time it veers away from this side of the band, A Country Western come roaring back–the six-minute downtempo “The Spine” gets followed by “How Far”, the lo-fi bedroom rock “Ridgeline” starts off minimal but finishes loudly, and the acoustic sparseness of “Hiding Out” is a prelude for the mid-tempo but plugged-in closing track “Wasting the Weekends”. Like a good deal of Life on the Lawn, there’s a bleak undercurrent running through that final song (just look at its title, for one), but A Country Western choose to send the song and the album off with a lifting lead guitar solo, throwing a rope towards the top of the ditch rather than just wallowing in it. (Bandcamp link)

Conor Lynch – Slow Country

Release date: March 29th
Record label: Devil Town Tapes
Genre: Country rock, folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Cockaigne

Conor Lynch’s fourth full-length album is titled Slow Country, and it’s a shining example of truth in advertising. Lynch is a Michigan-based folk/country artist who started self-releasing music in the mid-2010s and eventually linked up with British cassette label Devil Town Tapes, releasing three albums between 2017 and 2021. It’s tempting to compare Lynch to the other notable American folk singer on Devil Town, Greg Mendez, but Lynch’s music has a more Midwestern openness to it compared to Mendez’s intricate acoustic guitar pop–Slow Country feels more like a subdued version of Michigan folk rockers Frontier Ruckus’ latest album. Lynch does indeed embrace both “slow” and “country” on his latest album–for one, he took his time developing this record’s dozen songs, which reflected in the fully-realized nature of the album (featuring all sorts of guest musicians on strings, horns, banjo, mandolin, accordion, and more), and tempo-wise, it’s indeed on the “requires patience” side, sounding like a warmer, friendlier version of Grass Jaw’s lonesome slowcore-country. Lynch still has a bit of an “unassuming bedroom pop” delivery, but it’s counterbalanced by the deliberate folk and expansive country music he creates with it.

Slow Country begins with a six-minute country-folk song called “Psithurism” (which means “the rustling of leaves”, apparently), a plodding tune that makes ample use of Kaysen Chown’s violin and Ryan McDonald’s pedal steel. It does feature percussion, but the drums (played by Lynch himself) certainly aren’t there to usher the song forward, happily and amicably hanging out with the rest of the instrumentation. If that’s a bit intimidating, you might be more drawn to the brisker, more succinct country-rock grooves of “Cockaigne” and “Tworailsmeet”, although you’re going to get significantly more out of Slow Country if you embrace the rambling nature of songs like “Hill” (featuring Lynch stepping up to the piano in the instrumental sections) and “Creator” (a lonesome, pedal-steel heavy folk-country ballad). Lynch keeps things simple on “Everything’s Beautiful”, which needs little more than its acoustic finger-picking to drive its point home, but the record still has plenty of terrain to traverse in its second half–for one, “Long Ways from Home” takes the idea behind “Everything’s Beautiful” and contorts it, distorting Lynch’s voice in a surprising but oddly fitting way. “Bank 2 Bank” and “There Is a Road” are some of the most sketched-out songs on the entire record hidden away in the final third, although the closing title track is a spare one. Taking one last long look at the country surrounding him, Lynch lets the expanse speak for itself. (Bandcamp link)

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