Pressing Concerns: Wishy, Tony Jay, Lesibu Grand, Sailor Down

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The Thursday Pressing Concerns is here, and it’s got four records coming out tomorrow, August 16th, for you to check out below (new LPs from Wishy, Tony Jay, and Lesibu Grand, and a new EP from Sailor Down). Earlier this week, we looked at Fast Execution, Real Companion, Cowgirl, and Brown Dog (on Monday) and The Ekphrastics, Purseweb, Greaser Phase, and Box Elder (on Tuesday), so check those ones out if you missed ’em.

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.

Wishy – Triple Seven

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Winspear
Genre: Noise pop, shoegaze, dream pop, fuzz rock
Formats: Vinyl, CD, cassette, digital
Pull Track: Sick Sweet

Towards the end of last year, Indianapolis’ Wishy debuted with a promising five-song EP called Paradise. Co-led by singer-songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, Wishy’s first impression was that of a band who already knew their way around a nice guitar pop song, as well as how to use dream pop and fuzzed-out 90s rock music as vessels. Krauter and Pitchkites eventually added guitarist Dimitri Morris, bassist Mitch Collins and drummer Conner Host to the fold and, just a few months after Paradise, already have a full-on Wishy LP in the form of Triple Seven. Triple Seven is, above anything else, a loud pop album–effectively, it’s like the Wishy of Paradise, but more. Wishy aren’t a “shoegaze band” in the same way that they aren’t a dream pop band or a 90s radio-rock band–these genres are tools to be picked up and wielded throughout Triple Seven, and Wishy clearly know how to use their weapons of choice. The towering pop moments are the throughline on Triple Seven–whether Wishy are being suave and slippery or blunt and pummeling, the record’s ten songs fit together under that particular banner. I’m not sure if Wishy could turn off this part of their DNA even if they wanted to; even as Triple Seven embraces louder guitars and longer song lengths, it’s somehow even more of an effective pop record than their debut.

Any trepidation about Wishy’s continued success one might have is immediately put to rest by opening track “Sick Sweet”, in which the band absolutely knock “maximalist first statement” out of the park. It’s one part distorted, punk-y power pop (this is a band that’s played shows with Dazy and Guided by Voices recently, after all) but there’s a huge Mellon Collie-like grandiosity to the track as well (there’s just a hint of “Tonight, Tonight”-like swelling strings underneath the noise, and one needs a Corganesque confidence to sing “You’re like an afterlife and I really wanna die tonight,” as a chorus like Krauter does). After that, Pitchkites brings the band’s bright mid-tempo, turn-of-the-century pop rock instincts to the forefront with the title track, a mode in which Wishy still excel. Pitchkites also helms another one of Triple Seven’s most casual indie pop moments, second half highlight “Just Like Sunday”–but she also sings co-lead on the massive-sounding shoegaze-fluent alt-rocker “Persuasion”, and Krauter gets a delicate moment of his own in the first half of single “Love on the Outside”, which surprisingly flirts with emo pop before the cranked-up guitars kick in after a minute or so. After a varied assortment of recordings, Wishy pleasingly close Triple Seven like they’ve got a surplus of decibels they need to burn through–“Honey” is a piece of peeling beauty that’s probably the closest thing to a “pure” shoegaze song on the record, and “Spit” closes things out with an all-or-nothing five-minute grunge-gaze finale. Most bands wouldn’t create something as fun-sounding and catchy as “Spit” out of its greyscale ingredients, but Wishy sound great going against the grain on Triple Seven. (Bandcamp link)

Tony Jay – Knife Is But a Dream

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Slumberland/Paisley Shirt/Galaxy Train
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, experimental folk, indie pop, bedroom rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: The World in Julia’s Eyes

Over the handful of years that this blog has existed, few people in the world of guitar pop have been more prolific than Mike Ramos. I’ve written about multiple records from Flowertown, his duo with Cindy’s Karina Gill, multiple LPs from his solo project Tony Jay, and just this year he’s contributed to new albums from Sad Eyed Beatniks and Chime School. With several irons in the fire, I suppose it’s not a big surprise that Ramos saves his quieter and more experimental moments for Tony Jay, whose records are generally home-recorded by Ramos himself. Tony Jay’s debut for Slumberland Records, last year’s Perfect Worlds, took a hesitant step towards cleaning up and refining the project’s sound, but 2024’s offering from Tony Jay is not so compromising. Knife Is But a Dream was recorded in May of this year at home, like most Tony Jay albums, but while Perfect Worlds featured a handful of human guest musicians, the only other being credited on Ramos’ latest record is his fourteen-year-old cat, Penny. According to Ramos, Penny’s declining health is reflected in Knife Is But a Dream, which even by Tony Jay standards is a tricky one. It’s quite insular, can be standoffish and abrasive at times, and makes one work for the warmth eventually revealed throughout the record in spades–much like a cat, I suppose.

Two of Knife Is But a Dream’s first three songs–“Ancient Slice” and “Cool Beat”–are noise pieces, the former a chaotic collage all the way through and the latter primarily an ambient rhythm that gets thornier and louder over two and a half minutes. In between the two is a pin-drop quiet acoustic recording called “Something Kind”. This kind of barely-there, drawn-out version of pop music feels like all Ramos can muster across the first half of Knife Is But a Dream–“Grey Is the Night” is similarly drab, although the title track and “Doubtfully Yours” are, at the very least, a little lighter (Ramos duets with white noise in the former, and the twinkling guitars in the latter are the brightest moment on the record up until that point). Knife Is But a Dream seems to warm up to the listener as it goes on–an intriguing cover of Todd Rundgren’s “A Dream Goes on Forever” near the midpoint is a clue, and while “The World in Julia’s Eyes”, “Water in a Cage”, and “The Darkest Corner” aren’t individually huge departures in tone, Knife Is But a Dream offering three pop songs of any kind in a row feels like a concession. The final two songs on Knife Is But a Dream are called “This Sux (Amen)” and “It Destroys Me”–it’d be a lie to say Ramos closes the album on an upbeat note, but at least he’s feeling something. (Bandcamp link)

Lesibu Grand – Triggered

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Kill Rock Stars
Genre: Power pop, punk rock, new wave, art rock
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Emotional Disguise

Lesibu Grand was formed in Atlanta in 2018 by longtime friends Tyler-Simone Molton and John Renaud–the former is the band’s vocalist, the latter plays bass, and the duo are the band’s primary songwriters. Their first record, the Legend of Miranda EP, came out the following year, and the band became a quintet with the addition of  Lee Wiggins on drums, Brian Turner on guitar, and Warren Ullom on keyboards. Songs that would eventually wind up on Triggered, the first Lesibu Grand full-length, started showing up as singles in 2020–about half the record looks to have been released in some form in the years leading up to the album. Even those already hip to Lesibu Grand still have plenty of new material to sift through on Triggered, however–their Kill Rock Stars debut is a sixteen-song CD-length album that stretches to nearly an hour and is unlikely to leave anyone feeling shortchanged. Lesibu Grand sound right at home in the expansiveness of Triggered–it’s an adventurous rock and roll album that pulls together tons of different ideas and influences excitedly. 

You can call Lesibu Grand a “punk band”, and sonically and attitude-wise you wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s hardly an orthodox exercise in its equal love of new wave, power pop, and pop punk (I wasn’t sure if comparing them to Blondie would be too reductive, but the band do it themselves on their Bandcamp page, so I can say “Lesibu Grand remind of Blondie” with no hesitation now). Those looking for punk throwback anthems will find them via appropriately-titled songs like “Anarchy”, “Pull the Trigger”, and “We Fuckin’ Suck”, but I find myself being drawn to the other tenets of Lesibu Grand’s sound, whether it’s eager-to-please power pop/new wave (the compelling synth/power chord weapon “Ordinary Girl”, the equally-bursting penultimate party track “Friends with My Friends”, the excellent car song “Heartbreak Blue”) or subtler, less in-your-face moments (the impressively restrained five-minute opening track “Scary Mary”, the low-self-worth power ballad “I’m Not Sorry”, the melancholic, jangly indie pop of “Emotional Disguise”). One really gets the full range of Molton and Renaud’s writing on Triggered–on “Not Sweet Enough” and “We Fuckin’ Suck”, Lesibu Grand is excoriating evil (on an individual level for the former, and societally for the latter) with white-hot punk rage, while the band that’s playing songs like “Jennifer, My Girl” and “Emotional Disguise” sounds like they’d be more at home on K or Sarah Records than Kill Rock Stars. I for one am grateful to get so much of Lesibu Grand on Triggered–some of this band’s best work is done on the periphery of their sound. (Bandcamp link)

Sailor Down – Maybe We Should Call It a Night

Release date: August 16th
Record label: Relief Map
Genre: Midwest emo, indie folk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: I Can’t Make You

Sailor Down began at the beginning of the decade as the solo bedroom folk project of Northampton, Massachusetts’ Chloe Deeley–her first EP under the name, 2021’s Skip the Line, was one of the first releases on New England label Relief Map Records (Convinced Friend, Old Moon, Kitner). Although Deeley began to expand Sailor Down’s sound on her first LP (last year’s Lookout Park), the project’s second EP is its first as a proper quartet. On Maybe We Should Call It a Night, Sailor Down is Deeley, drummer Nat Peirce, bassist Kevin McGrath, and guitarist Ben Husk (also of Lost Film), and it’s pleasing to hear that the group already have a distinct sound down as a unit on the record. The six songs of Maybe We Should Call It a Night pull together 90s Midwest emo, no-frills indie rock, and the more melancholic sides of twee and indie pop for a nostalgic, accessible, but hardly surface-level record (if you’re into the emo-indie rock-indie pop midpoint that Count Your Lucky Stars’ releases have explored lately, particularly on Polkadot’s album from earlier this year, Sailor Down are speaking a similar language).

“I Can’t Make You” kicks off this era of Sailor Down with emo-y indie rock’s version of a pop anthem–Deeley’s vocals (joined by McGrath and Husk’s, too) hug a simple pop melody and lean heavily into earnestness, and the chorus sounds on the brink of falling apart in the best way possible. Those waiting for Sailor Down to fully display their emo colors will be increasingly satiated as Maybe We Should Call It a Night advances–in particular, the run from the hard-fought “Vacation (Forgive Me Evan)” to the gorgeous dizzy guitars of “Locals Night” (with the plodding, contemplative “I Am the News” hanging out in between) contains some of the best “emo-adjacent” moments I’ve heard this year. Deeley’s songwriting, as it turns out, is well-suited for this type of music, as Maybe We Should Call It a Night is disproportionately full of memorable lyrics and lines for a small release. The writing in these songs feels drawn from imagined conversations and late-night pacing sessions, which makes the realizations and punchlines (“Some of us were made just to melt into water / But that’s a heavy thing to say when we’re out on a Friday,” from “Locals Night”, “I went to the ocean / It made me feel worse,” from “Last One Sober”) feel stumbled-upon and thus land even harder. Of course, this is all balanced by Sailor Down the band, whose gait feels firm, even, and purposeful. (Bandcamp link)

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2 thoughts on “Pressing Concerns: Wishy, Tony Jay, Lesibu Grand, Sailor Down”

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