Pressing Concerns: Big Ups, Nina Ryser, Weak Signal, Otis Shanty

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Another wrecking ball of a week here at Rosy Overdrive comes to a close with the Thursday Pressing Concerns, featuring four records coming out tomorrow, September 20th. We’ve got new albums from Nina Ryser, Weak Signal, and Otis Shanty, plus a tenth anniversary reissue and remix album from the great Big Ups. While you’re here, I’ll run down everything else that’s graced the blog this week: Monday’s blog post featured Mister Data, Pallas Wept, Big Bend, and The Knickerbocker5, Tuesday’s post featured Ex Pilots, Freddy Trujillo, Hey I’m Outside, and Seawind of Battery, and on Wednesday we looked at How to Begin by Downhaul. 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.

Big Ups – Eighteen Hours of Static / Eighteen Hours of Static (Hxπ Decoded)

Release date: September 20th
Record label: Dead Labour
Genre: Post-hardcore, noise rock, punk rock, garage rock, experimental
Formats: Vinyl (original album), cassette (Hxπ Decoded), digital
Pull Track: Goes Black

“What happens when it all goes black?” That’s the question that Big Ups memorably asked ten years ago in the most popular song off of their debut album, Eighteen Hours of Static. To the degree that a mid-2010s post-hardcore/garage rock song can be a “hit”, that’s what “Goes Black” ought to be considered–that fiery chorus more or less functions as shorthand for a specific era of East Coast DIY indie rock/punk, an era of which Big Ups were indisputably a key part. Drummer Brendan Finn, vocalist Joe Galarraga, guitarist Amar Lal, and bassist Carlos Salguero Jr. were already a whirlwind of a band on the twenty-eight minute original version of Eighteen Hours of Static, a live-wire record that slams together meaty noise rock, sinewy, claustrophobic 90s post-hardcore/post-rock, and Black Flag-like self-combusting punk rock. The liner notes for the tenth anniversary reissue, written by Dayna Evans, do (knowingly) contain the phrase “man, you just had to be there”, but even those who came to Big Ups later (like me, who subsequently harbors a heightened appreciation for their final album, 2018’s Two Parts Together) don’t have to close our eyes and imagine that we’re in Shea Stadium to get rocked by Eighteen Hours of Static.

I consider Big Ups such a key part of the entire Exploding in Sound Records “thing” that I don’t think I realized that their first album wasn’t even put out by them–Eighteen Hours of Static came via Tough Love in the U.K. and Dead Labour in the U.S., the latter of which is reissuing it for its tenth anniversary and has also put together a supplemental remix album called Eighteen Hours of Static (Hxπ Decoded), featuring a bunch of artists who were a part of the same movement, including Maneka, This Is Lorelei, Rebecca Ryskalczyk (Bethlehem Steel), and Sad13 (Speedy Ortiz). The original album, as I’ve alluded to, still sounds monumentally fresh, the work of a quartet made up of exactly the right players at the right time. “Goes Black” is a towering presence, to be sure, but it’s hardly the only incredible song on the album–in another world, the blistering, warped punk of “Justice” is Big Ups’ signature song, and tracks like the writhing opening track “Body Parts” and four-minute centerpiece “Wool” capture the band’s kinetic energy and harness it for something different but no less powerful. 

Big Ups went on “indefinite hiatus” in early 2019, and while they did contribute a Fugazi cover to a compilation in 2021, the sole live show they’re playing to commemorate the anniversary of Eighteen Hours of Static is their first one in a half-decade (I don’t know what the entire band has been up to in the meantime, but I can tell you that Lal has been busy, at least–he’s put out a few ambient albums and mastered several records I’ve written about on this website, too). While the band are looking back, Eighteen Hours of Static (Hxπ Decoded) is a neat way to make something new while doing so, inviting “old friends and collaborators” to remix these songs. Full disclosure–I’d already decided to write about the Eighteen Hours of Static reissue before I’d heard the remix album, so this would be here even if it was completely inessential. Of course I prefer the original album, but Hxπ Decoded is a pretty fun and enlightening listen–one thing I really appreciate about it is how pretty much everybody keeps the original’s aggression in the mix in some form or another, whether the original song is still fairly intact (like This Is Lorelei’s “Goes Black”) or deconstructed fully (like Rebecca Ryskalczyk’s “Justice”). Big Ups and their peers are free to mess around with Eighteen Hours of Static as much as they want–it’s not losing any power. (Bandcamp link/Bandcamp link)

Nina Ryser – Water Giants

Release date: September 20th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Indie pop, art pop, experimental rock, ambient pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Things I Claim

One of the first albums I ever wrote about in Pressing Concerns was Palberta’s Palberta5000, a wild experimental pop/rock record that was one of my favorites of 2021. Palberta hasn’t released anything since Palberta5000, but the band’s members have been busy–Lily Konigsberg has been adding to a fruitful solo career and co-leading My Idea with This Is Lorelei’s Nate Amos, while Ani Ivry-Block has shown up on records from Kolb and Climax Landers. The third member of Palberta, Nina Ryser, has recently joined the touring lineup of experimental duo @ and quietly released her first solo material since 2020, an EP called I Miss My Dog, late last year. I Miss My Dog was a quickly-written and recorded collection of songs about the death of Ryser’s dog, home-recorded like all her solo material at that point–Water Giants, her first album for Dear Life and fifth overall, is the one that breaks this streak. Co-produced by Lucas Knapp and featuring contributions from her @ bandmates (among others), Water Giants is a dizzying studio pop album that takes full advantage of the extra tools at its disposal. Ryser’s lo-fi pop attitude is still there, but it sits alongside material that takes it and blows it up into something larger and more expansive–as well as material that eschews “pop” entirely.

There are a lot of great pop songs on Water Giants, but none of them are in the album’s opening slot–that would be a two-minute, aptly-titled experimental piece called “Swirl”, introducing a just-as-important side of the record that’s also carried by the handclap-aided noise collage “Piggy Boys” and the ambient stillness of “Dust Girls”. In between these compositions, a pop album happens–right after “Swirl” is “Cuz You”, a steady piece of synth-colored pop rock that sounds like a more Stereolab-ified version of Palberta, and single “Things I Claim”, which is more-or-less a bedroom folk song displaying a different kind of accessibility. The mid-section of Water Giants is the heaviest part–“Why Do I Ask” and “Underestimate” spruce things up by marrying Ryser’s pop writing with layered indie rock that speeds (in the former) and lumbers (in the latter) in new ways. Climbing down the other side of the mountain, “Mercury Soda” and “Lessen Your Load” encounter a hazy fog that overwhelms Water Giants until a couple more golden pop songs emerge towards the record’s end. Eli Kleinsmith’s violin helps turn “You Are What You Eat” into an unlikely chamber pop winner, but “Beauty in Grime” might be my favorite moment on the album. Ryser’s muse is a literal heap of garbage, as she reflects on its contents (“Accumulated years filled with joy and tears / … / Former objects of desire growing higher and higher”) in nothing less than awe. Ryser needs little more than simple piano to deliver “Beauty in Grime”, but its plain-spoken beauty is enhanced by the glistening piles around it. (Bandcamp link)

Weak Signal – Fine

Release date: September 20th
Record label: 12XU
Genre: Psychedelic rock, garage rock, 90s indie rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Disappearing

I’m not one to often quote other music writers in my own writing, but Andy Cush (of The Bird Calls and the website “Pitchfork”) referred to Weak Signal as “Yo La Tengo, if Yo La Tengo gave you the vague sense that they might mug you with a butterfly knife after the show” last year, and there’s no sense trying to come up with a more succinct descriptor as that. The New York trio (Tran Huynh, Sasha Vine, and Mike Bones) have rode a distinct mix of chugging psychedelic rock, precise, fuzzed-out garage-y indie rock, and post-punk rhythmic excellence through four albums now–their sophomore album, Bianca, caught my attention in 2021, and 2022’s War&War subtly ironed out some wrinkles in a just-as-good way. War&War also began their affiliation with 12XU Records (Lupo Citta, John Sharkey III, Florry), who issued it on vinyl last year and are also releasing Fine, the fourth Weak Signal LP. The ten song’s on the trio’s latest album continue Weak Signal’s ability to feel streamlined but unhurried, forming an effortless-sounding mix of seediness and transcendence that is musical comfort food to a certain subset of indie rock sickos. Even the moments on Fine that don’t adhere to Weak Signal’s signature propulsive, electric rock and roll feel perfunctory, like well-curated detours before hopping back on the highway.

Fine starts with over a minute of guitar feedback and drumrolls before the opening track, “Out on a Wire”, cranks it into gear–I view it as a sort of throat-clearing and stretching ritual before Weak Signal launch into their familiar, sweaty workout. The first half of Fine doesn’t have a whole lot of breathing room, after all–sure, the somewhat downcast, mid-tempo college rock of “Wannabe” isn’t as fast as, say, the revved-up “Disappearing”, but there isn’t a moment on Side A that doesn’t feel driven and purposeful (Bones does dream of lounging about aimlessly on “Rich Junkie”, but it’s telling that this lifestyle feels out of reach). “Everything is cool, everything is chill,” Bones sings in the chorus of “Chill”, almost reassuring us before Weak Signal launch into the record’s first big left turn in the six-minute soft balladry of “Baby”. Bones has played in Cass McCombs’ band before, and the folk rocker appears on “Baby” to play acoustic guitar–it’s some of the most explicit connecting threads between the two of them yet, and though McCombs doesn’t appear on the two-minute acoustic “Terá Tera”, the similarities continue through that one, too. Fine gets back on the track with the trucking “ILF” and the rumbling “Barking at the Moon”, but “A Little Hum”, finally, finds the midpoint because acoustic strumming and fuzzed out, rhythmic indie rock to close the record. It’s a peaceful conclusion; surely my wallet is safe with these folks, right? (Bandcamp link)

Otis Shanty – Up on the Hill

Release date: September 20th
Record label: Relief Map
Genre: Jangle pop, dream pop, folk rock
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Why Do I Care?

I first heard upstate New York-originating, Massachusetts-based quartet Otis Shanty late last year, when I wrote about a four-song EP of theirs called Early Birds. I was quite impressed with the sound that the band (vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Sadye Bobbette, guitarist Ryan DiLello, bassist Julian Snyder, and drummer Jono Quinn) proffered on Early Birds–laid-back and sprawling, studiously hewing towards the hazy and dreamier sides of jangle pop and folk rock aside from a couple of brief Yo La Tengo-esque noisy flare-ups and reliably strong vocals from Bobbette that prevent the record from fading into the background. The EP got the attention of Relief Map Records (the premiere label for New England bands that could be described as “jangly” and/or “dreamy”), who are putting out Otis Shanty’s sophomore album, Up on the Hill (recorded by Chaimes Parker at Bradford Krieger’s Big Nice Studio in Rhode Island). The nine-song record may only be eight minutes longer than Early Birds, but it feels like more of a “full-length”–there are moments where the band recreate the singular wandering feeling of their previous record, yes, but there are just as many moments where Otis Shanty look beyond and expand upon this sound.

If the shimmering, Real Estate-esque take on guitar pop music of Early Birds spoke to you, you’ll love “Nobody’s Party”, which starts Up on the Hill by picking up seemingly right where Otis Shanty left off–DiLello’s guitar gently but deftly rolls across the song, while Synder’s bass plods along and Bobbette delivers a conversationally dynamic performance as a singer. From there, though, Up on the Hill displays its range–“Tree Queen” is sweeping and surf-tinged, an upbeat and brief track that lets us all know that Otis Shanty can do shoegaze-y indie rock, too, and still deliver solid hooks. “Why Do I Care?” might be less dramatic of a departure, but it still sounds like new territory to my ears–the rhythms of the song, particularly in the bass-and-guitar interplay, are tighter than I’d grown to expect from Otis Shanty, coming together to form a gorgeously blossoming chorus. “Seasonal Apprehension” is another left turn from the band in its embrace of relatively straightforward 90s indie rock/slacker pop in its construction–and that’s even before the vocals kick in and it’s DeLillo who starts singing with a classic half-spoken lilt (you can hear Bobbette in the background, though). DeLillo even rips a giddy guitar solo as the song comes to a close (although the band follow it up with a one-minute ambient piece, perhaps as penance). Otis Shanty are still making comfortable-feeling music with Up on the Hill, but they don’t use that as an excuse to be complacent. (Bandcamp link)

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