Hello there, folks! Both Monday and Tuesday of this week were dedicated to unveiling Rosy Overdrive’s Top 40 Albums of 2024 So Far, so the first Pressing Concerns of the week is a rare Wednesday edition. It’s a grab-bag of weird underground rock and roll, offbeat pop, and unique songwriting this time around: new albums from Goosewind, Eyecandy, and Daniel Brouns, and an EP from Iffin, appear in this edition.
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.
Goosewind – The Miracle of Tape
Release date: April 19th
Record label: Shrimper
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental rock
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: The Miracle of Tape
Goosewind is a long-running lo-fi indie rock project led by Rick Bunce, a Shrimper Records O.G. Like Shrimper’s most notable bands (The Mountain Goats, Refrigerator, Nothing Painted Blue), Bunce came up in southern California’s Inland Empire region, and the first few Goosewind cassettes in the early 90s were some of Shrimper’s first releases, even if they don’t exactly have the cult following today that some of the other acts on that label’s roster do (even the Internet’s preeminent Shrimper fansite has little to say on them). Although they moved on from Shrimper after a few releases, Goosewind never stopped putting out music, and the two reunited for 2022’s Grateful 4 the Times We Share cassette. Goosewind are back just two years later, and Bunce and his collaborators (this time, Melody Kriesel, Maddelleine Grae, Ruben Marquez, Gerry Hernandez, Rich Jones, and Jen Preciado) have cooked up a forty-five minute CD called The Miracle of Tape. My formal introduction to Goosewind may have come thirty years later, but I almost immediately understood them as true adherents to an important, inventive, and less-remembered strain of indie rock right out of the 1990s.
Other than the obvious Shrimper bands, Goosewind’s underground is the same underground as Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, the Strapping Fieldhands, Souled American, Trumans Water, Skin Graft Records…music that’s compelling and “difficult”–not merely due to recording style, but due to something positively ornery at its core. Half a dozen songs into The Miracle of Tape, every track genuinely sounds like it was written and performed by a different band. To a certain kind of person, it might feel like Goosewind are playing a trick on you–but in reality, they’re not only serious, but just about as honest as they come, too. There’s no easily-digestible, polished package to be found here: just music, beautiful, weird, and impossible to ignore. The six-minute title track opens the record with Shrimper’s version of goth and punk rock, a mid-tempo power chord chugger that’s sure to satisfy neither goth nor punk purists. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine someone who wouldn’t be charmed by the soaring, glossy, AutoTuned synthpop of “Broken Hearts Club” one song later.
“Rest Stop Tree” and “Fever Pitch” land somewhere between the first two songs on the record–decidedly not for everyone, but if you’re open to either’s terrain (slide guitar-shaded folk music for the former, fuzzed-out glam-punk for the latter), they’re heavenly. These are the “hits” on The Miracle of Tape, but hardly the full story–one that also includes lengthy instrumentals (“It’s Always 1145”, “Rich Metal”), annoying “pirate radio” skits from Kriesel and Bunce (“Murphy’s Law”, “Transylvania Airlines”), and stuff that–there’s no way around it–is just plain weird (“Tourette’s of the Feet”, “Caddy Smells Like Trees”). Even the hits, though, are transmissions from a different world–as tempting as it would be to describe “Rest Stop Tree” as “Neutral Milk Hotel-esque”, it’s probably closer to Charlie McAlister, and while “Fever Pitch” could’ve been a 70s punk classic, it’s actually a cover of a song by Halo, a Los Angeles 90s band also associated with Shrimper. I’ve written about bands that sound like Lungfish before, but this might be the closest music has gotten to the miraculous feeling of going to the aquarium and seeing an actual lungfish. It’s out on CD, but The Miracle of Tape is the right name for it. (Midheaven link)
Eyecandy – You Can See Me from the Mountain
Release date: May 24th
Record label: Gore Club
Genre: Noise rock, experimental rock, post-hardcore, prog-punk
Formats: CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Changeling
Oxnard, California noise rock quartet Eyecandy first showed up in 2021 in the form of an EP (Supernova) and a full-length (The Promontory), which I heard through a tape released by Knife Hits and The Ghost Is Clear Records that compiled both into a single release. Eyecandy’s discography up to that point was a fine collection of loud, noisy rock music–clearly punk-informed, but still very heavy–but truthfully the band (Manuel Chavez, Cameron Esmaili, Robert Segura, and Julian Martinez) had kind of slipped my mind until their sophomore album, You Can See Me from the Mountain, showed up in my inbox. I ended up being quite surprised with how much of a leap Eyecandy have taken in the past few years–it’s not that they’ve abandoned their noise rock sound, they’re just…more now. The band careen through loopy, Beefheartian prog-punk, bone-quaking heavy rock, and bright and even a bit orchestral indie rock (among other genres) across You Can See Me from the Mountain–it’s a record clearly in line with weirdo underground rock of the 80s and 90s (from Touch & Go, Amphetamine Reptile, Alternative Tentacles, etc.), but it (like the best of this kind of music) hardly sounds like a reverent tribute.
You Can See Me from the Mountain greets the listener with an instrumental opener that moves into “The Grand Cannon”, which goes from jaunty, swinging saloon rock to pummeling noise rock on a dime, and “Skeleton Key”, a writhing, tortured-sounding post-harcore-metal thing that’s the heaviest song on the album. Funnily enough, this opening stretch is the least accessible part of the album–Eyecandy remain weird, but sometimes that means sticking a bright, jangly pop rock tune (“Changeling”, which still has just a bit of an edge) in the middle of the record, or channeling their huge sound into industrial post-punk throbbing (“The Entertainer”). The oddest single song on You Can See Me from the Mountain is probably “Polka”, which continues in the grand tradition of noise rock bands taking the piss out of other genres of music in a deliberately annoying and borderline-unlistenable way (I kind of hate it, but it’s also undeniably a work of art), although they continue to genre hop in the record’s second half from the maximalist, almost emo-indie-rock of “Pinky” to the straight-up punk of “Hole in My Head” to the huge, seven-minute prog-indebted closing track “The Mountain”. You Can See Me from the Mountain ends with everyone singing together, having reached the summit–we’d best enjoy it, as we’ve no idea where Eyecandy will go next. (Bandcamp link)
Daniel Brouns – Stock Music for the Cosmos
Release date: May 17th
Record label: Anxiety Blanket
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter, slowcore
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Closure
Daniel Brouns grew up in Turlock, California (apparently it’s close to Modesto) before moving to Los Angeles to pursue music–engineering and mastering music, to be specific. He did that for a couple of years before deciding to make it himself, as well, releasing his debut solo EP Boy’s Normal in 2017. Anxiety Blanket Records eventually re-released his first record, and they’re also putting out Stock Music for the Cosmos, the first-ever Daniel Brouns LP. Brouns had been working on Stock Music for the Cosmos since before the pandemic with co-producer Kenny Becker–the two of them play most of what’s on the record, although they also enlist Emily Elkin (Angel Olsen’s band) to play cello and Chuck Moore (Cartalk) for backing vocals. Stock Music for the Cosmos is a “singer-songwriter” album, albeit one certainly informed by Brouns’ music engineering past, as it has a rich and impactful sound. Most of these songs have acoustic, folk-ish skeletons, but Brouns isn’t afraid of using synths and rock instrumentation to tease them out–combined with Brouns’ deep voice and his personal lyric-writing, the record reminds me a lot of Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan.
When I say Brouns’ writing on Stock Music for the Cosmos is “personal”, I mean that as literally as possible–the songs are about “nine of the most influential moments of his life”, three from each decade the thirty-year-old has been alive. Romantic and familial relationships, messy breakups, death–all of these color Brouns’ reminiscences throughout the record. The earliest songs all feel a bit more like discrete moments–the death of a classroom pet in “Lizard Killer”, the football game-turned-brawl in “The Legend of Duke Stone”, and “Porn: An Internet Experience”, a delicate folk song that fearlessly captures the gravity of something very powerful that we still don’t do a very good job of talking about. As Stock Music for the Cosmos advances, lines get blurred and the songs begin to bleed into each other. I view “Ash”, “Closure”, and “Watershed” as a trio of sorts–I don’t know if they’re all about the same romantic relationship, but they all capture the apprehension, pain, and peace (respectively) often found in one with a clear end date. Further reflecting real life, “700 Miles”–a song about the death of Brouns’ mother–interrupts this arc, a realistically inconvenient tragedy. It’s all handled with a polish that doesn’t cheapen anything Brouns sings about–Stock Music for the Cosmos receives a reading appropriate for a record a lifetime in the making. (Bandcamp link)
Iffin – Homage to Catatonia (Picaro Two)
Release date: May 1st
Record label: Self-released
Genre: College rock, folk rock, jangle pop, psych pop
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Kinderkings
Last year, I wrote about a four-song EP called Picaro 1: As the Crow Fights by the Seattle-based project Iffin. Iffin is the latest guise of longtime musician Mira Tsarina, and as recent releases such as Picaro 1 indicated, it’s been a vehicle for her to explore her own unique, skewed take on vintage guitar pop and college rock (I mentioned Robert Pollard, Graeme Downes, and Franklin Bruno in that review at the time–artists that are effectively impossible to carbon copy, meaning that Iffin has had no trouble developing a distinct “sound” by taking influence from these giants). A year later, Iffin has put out a sequel of sorts in Homage to Catatonia (Picaro Two), five more songs that fit right next to its prequel on the digital shelf quite nicely but not without taking a step forward, too. At alternative moments both catchier and stranger than Picaro 1, Homage to Catatonia is marked by a more palpable playfulness and adventurousness that flirts with blowing the entire world of Iffin right open.
The prominent mandolin strumming that opens first song “Document of Descent” is unlike anything else I’d heard from Iffin thus far, and Tsarina takes it a step further by grafting a melodic bass part to the track as well–it’s one part R.E.M. and The Waterboys, another part XTC, all of which had been a part of Iffin but never quite bubbling to the surface like this. On almost any such brief EP, “Document of Descent” would easily be the catchiest song, but Homage to Catatonia actually saves its biggest moment for the back end with penultimate track “Kinderkings”, a sparkling, absurdly jaunty piece of jangle pop that once again evokes Andy Partridge if he had a completely different personality. With a couple of towering songs on either end of Homage to Catatonia, Iffin now has the cover necessary to get a bit weird in the center of the EP, with the murky “Cost of Floss” taking a minute to break out of its stupor to embrace a sneaky post-punk/new wave hook and the record’s centerpiece, the five-minute atmospheric “Pointless Walk”, never entirely leaving its own hypnosis. Instead, it just hands everything over to the giddy guitar, bass, and melodic of “Kinderkings” after its wandered enough, allowing Homage to Catatonia to hit us with a reminder of just how fun-sounding this kind of music can be in the right hands. (Bandcamp link)
Also notable:
- Program – It’s a Sign
- GUPPY – Something Is Happening…
- Blame Shifters – Everyone Must Go
- The Battlebeats – Meet Your Maker
- IMustBe Leonardo – Not to Be Scared of Weekend
- Tia Rosa – Misterio Lounge 3000
- Miri Tyler – MEMO
- Parent Teacher – Ethereal Collapse
- Psychic Temple – Doggie Paddlin’ Thru the Cosmic Consciousness
- Slugger – Chumps & Suckers EP
- Trust Blinks – Turns to Gold
- Awful Din – Sunday Gentlemen EP
- Unwed Sailor – Underwater Over There
- Fantastic Cat – Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat
- Fishtalk – OUT
- Dehd – Poetry
- Outblinker – Outblinker
- Corker Conboy – In Light of That Learnt Letter
- Lightning Bug – No Paradise
- Bonny Light Horseman – Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free
- Iron & Wine – Light Verse
- Karen Haglof – One Hand Up
- Paul Benjamin Band – My Bad Side Wants a Good Time
- Flesh Car – Flesh Car
- Moon Tide Gallery – Stop Looking at Me Like That EP
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