Pressing Concerns: Casual Technicians, Sexores, Dogwood Gap, Morpho

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On this fine Monday morning in November, the acclaimed music blog Rosy Overdrive and its Pressing Concerns column is looking at three records that came out last Friday: the second Casual Technicians LP of 2024, as well as new EPs from Dogwood Gap and Morpho. We’re also looking at a reissue of an album from Sexores that originally came out a decade ago. A bunch of quality below!

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Casual Technicians – Deeply Unworthy

Release date: November 15th
Record label: Repeating Cloud
Genre: Lo-fi pop, psych pop, jazz-pop, psych folk
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: Nothingland

The Casual Technicians have been called up for an encore. Tyler Keene, Boone Howard, and Nathan Baumgartner are a trio of Portland, Oregon-originating musicians now (partially) based in New Jersey and upstate New York–the latter of those two locations is where the three of them gathered last year to record their self-titled debut album, which came out this March. I called Casual Technicians a “perfectly imperfect melding of three distinct pop weirdos”, like a more communal version of Keene’s lo-fi psych pop solo project Log Across the Washer, and I was far from the only one charmed by the group’s bursting, buzzing, catchy music. The people have demanded a second Casual Technicians album of 2024, and they’ve obliged, once again meeting at Howard’s farm in Chittenango to put together Deeply Unworthy. Noticeably less zany than their first album, Deeply Unworthy is a little sleepier and subdued, like a band that was ready to pack it in, genuinely not expecting the ensuing “one more song!” chant. The writing on this one is no less effective, though–and this helps ease us into this new era of Casual Technicians. It takes a few listens for it to become apparent just how much of a forward step it is for them–the songs, on closer inspection, are no less complex than the bells-and-whistles-fest of their debut, the increased prominence of Fraser A Campbell’s saxophone veers us into straight-up jazz-pop territory, and the Casual Technicians themselves sound as cohesive as they’ve ever been. It’s an impressive feat given everything about Deeply Unworthy.

I wouldn’t have called Casual Technicians “relaxing”, but Deeply Unworthy pulls it off, believe it or not. The Technicians set the tone right at the beginning by giving Campbell’s saxophone the lead-off prime slot in opening intro track “Lord’s Valley”, and we’re greeted with several songs in the vein of psych-folk-pop-jazz campfire soundtrackers from “You Carry Me Away” to “Overdrive” to “Everyone Is Lonely”. There are less out-of-nowhere moments of aggressive pop brilliance on Deeply Unworthy, but the Casual Technicians’ pursuit of a Vibe has resulted in a singularly smooth and even seventeen-song album. And it’s not like these songs aren’t immediately-hitting too in their own way–drum-circle vibes and prominent saxophone don’t stop “Locally Hated” from being an infectious early highlight, “Dark Matter Falling” injects a bit of the first album’s wobbly chaos into the mix, and the fervent, dramatic “Nothingland” might be the most affecting thing that the Casual Technicians have put to tape yet. “Nothingland” lapses into a psychedelic finale, and they follow it up with what’s probably the most bizarre song on the album, “Dunking”–but the trio clean up their act to close things out with the acoustic strummer “This Emotion”. If “This Emotion” seems a bit woozy at times, there’s no reason to worry–after flying off the handle right out of the gate on their first album, the Casual Technicians have learned to land on Deeply Unworthy. (Bandcamp link)

Sexores – Historias de fr​í​o (Reissue)

Release date: November 1st
Record label: Buh
Genre: Shoegaze, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Historias de fr​í​o

Regular readers of the blog will remember Sexores, the Buh Records-associated dream pop/shoegaze band from Ecuador and currently based in Mexico City who put out their fifth LP, Mar del Sur, about a year ago. That was the first I’d heard of Sexores, but the group has had a notable history spanning four full-lengths, a dozen years, and three continents before that record, a significant part of which is Historias de fr​í​o, their sophomore album they originally self-released in 2014. Recorded while Sexores were in the process of relocating from Quito to Barcelona (where they’d reside until moving to Mexico City in 2018), Historias de fr​í​o was the band’s breakthrough of sorts, garnering some attention and leading to an eventual partnership with Peruvain label Buh Records, who’ve released all their albums since then and are also releasing Historias de fr​í​o on vinyl for the record’s tenth anniversary. Jumping back from Mar del Sur’s electronic, synthpop-shaded dream pop sound, Sexores sound more like a typical indie rock group here, earning the “shoegaze” label that’s been attached to them even as they’ve branched out more in recent years. Comprised of Historias de fr​í​o’s eight original songs and augmented by the 2013 non-album single “Titán”/ “Dopplegänger”, this new version of the album is a holistic picture of a pivotal time in the band’s history.

Plenty of Sexores’ polished dream pop side is visible on Historias de fr​í​o, but it sits alongside expansive, layered, guitar-heavy rock music for the majority of the album. The title track is an understated opener, taking its time to rattle through an odyssey of reverb, melodic but low-key vocals, and steady, stoic percussion. “Below the Rainbow” is a bit more upfront and upbeat, but given that it’s six minutes long, there’s plenty more to the track than its loudest and highest moments. The twin pillars of Historias de fr​í​o seem to be its prominent rock-forward rhythm section and the band’s more exploratory instincts–it’s hard to know where songs like “Dahmer” and “Eli” will end up just based off of their inceptions, but one thing we can count on is that the drums will ground the tracks as they move along. The finale of the original version of Historias de fr​í​o is a six-minute toe-tapping, swirling indie rock song called “Shinigami”, and that song still feels like a worthy cap, although the two “bonus” tracks aren’t exactly afterthoughts. “Titán” in particular is a seven-minute kaleidoscopic dream pop song that’s unlike anything on the album proper, even as it still has that cavernous, trusty drumbeat kicking along beside it. It may not sound exactly like the Sexores of 2024, but Historias de fr​í​o on its own still sounds fresh today. (Bandcamp link)

Dogwood Gap – House Sounds

Release date: November 15th
Record label: Revelator
Genre: Alt-country, folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Mommy Knows Best

Patrick Murray is a singer-songwriter from Massachusetts who’s living in Brooklyn these days; a couple of years ago, he started making music as Dogwood Gap, releasing an EP (2022’s More from the Cellar), an album (last year’s Winesburg), and a two-song single (“Class Clown” b/w “Short Sheet”, also last year) in short order. The latest record from Dogwood Gap is a CD EP called House Sounds, which also serves as the debut release from Revelator Records, a new imprint started by Murray himself to release music from him and his New York peers. If you’re already decently familiar with the worlds of alt-country and indie folk rock, the first thing you’ll notice about Murray is that he’s a big Songs: Ohia fan–his project is named after a song from their debut album, and House Sounds features a pretty faithful cover of Jason Molina’s signature song, “Farewell Transmission”. So yes, Dogwood Gap sound a good deal like Songs: Ohia on House Sounds, but aside from their “Farewell Transmission”, Murray (who, aside from guest vocals on the cover by Carlie Houser, is the only musician on the EP) hews towards earlier Molina material–cavernous, almost slowcore-like folk music, technically delivered in “rock band” format but a particularly winding and snaking version of it.

Despite having only four tracks, House Sounds is nearly thirty minutes long–“Sicario” and “Farewell Transmission” both cross the seven minute mark, and there’s a hidden track after the latter. Dogwood Gap stretch out a lot over the course of the EP–opening track “Mommy Knows Best” is their version of country rock, shambling and rambling across four minutes of intermittently strong guitars and a plodding, leisurely beat. The lengthy “Sicario” is a bit quieter, but it’s not exactly a dirge–steady and patient, the song eventually reaches something that’s recognizably lively folk rock, too. Of the record’s proper songs, it’s “By Design” that has the most pronounced silence, but like “Sicario”, it builds to something more concrete–except “By Design” feels bleak the entire way through, and the (relatively brief) climax doesn’t shake the darkness so much as give a stronger voice to it. Covering “Farewell Transmission” is cheating, but Dogwood Gap don’t fuck it up and it doesn’t overshadow the rest of the EP too much, so that’s a success in my book. Murray’s “Farewell Transmission” might just be a way to bury the final hidden track, the actual sparsest, most ghostly thing on the record. House Sounds is a record made with close proximity to its architect’s heroes, but Murray ends it entirely on his own and sounds perfectly capable of doing so. (Bandcamp link)

Morpho – Morpho Season

Release date: November 15th
Record label: Hit the North
Genre: Folk rock, fuzz rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Half of Two

Kristyn Chapman has been making music in Chicago for a while now, most notably as the lead guitarist in the band Waltzer, who put out an album back in 2021 and were most recently seen releasing a split single with Tea Eater last year. In fact, three-fourths of Waltzer appears on Morpho Season, the debut EP from Chapman’s new project Morpho–Waltzer’s bassist Kelly Hannemann and drummer Sarah Weddle are Chapman’s backing band for the majority of the record. The five-song EP (which also features instrumental contributions from co-producers William Erickson and Joey Lemon) is a soft but strong launching pad for Morpho–Chapman’s songwriting gives these tracks a firm foundation, and Morpho have a familiar, warm, and pleasing sound that mixes classic indie rock with folk rock and a Crazy Horse-like relaxed fuzziness. It’s not quite Wednesday levels of country-gaze, but if you liked the last record from fellow Windy City post-alt-country-rockers Ratboys or what Lily Seabird has been up to in New England, Morpho Season might have just the right ingredients.

Throughout Morpho Season, Chapman and her band have the dynamics on lock–songs effortlessly go from breezy, airy folk-influenced tunes to roaring rockers so subtly that it always feels natural. Morpho sound comfortable on their first statement–opening track “Prism” is quite catchy, but not overly showy about it, and while it gets a little more rousing as it goes on, it’s hardly the EP’s “biggest” moment. Morpho’s strongest song in terms of pure electricity is “Half of Two”, which has some nice, chunky guitar to rest upon–to say nothing of the soaring, satisfying solo that Chapman unleashes in the second half of the track. Although Morpho don’t quite hit that high again, the meat of Morpho Season is clearly made by a band with that ability–“Morpho Friend” and “Blue Light” are both deliberately more low-key, steadily trekking and wobbling their ways to well-earned guitar theatrics as they draw to a close. The only track that doesn’t do this at all on Morpho Season is the EP’s closing track, “The End”, in which Chapman stubbornly resists adding anything more than minimal bass and keys to the song’s acoustic foundation. It’s a strong indie folk conclusion, but to me it sounds more poignant thanks to the heights that Morpho scale before they wind up there. (Bandcamp link)

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