Pressing Concerns: Mystery Fix, Yuasa-Exide, Possum in My Room, Schande

Welcome to the second half of December! There’ll be more year-end wrapping up coming on the blog soon (hot on the heels of last week’s Top 100 Albums of 2024), but we’re starting off the week with a Pressing Concerns that pulls from a handful of underappreciated releases from the past couple of months: new albums from Mystery Fix, Possum in My Room, and Schande, plus a two-album cassette compilation from Yuasa-Exide.

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. And last but not least: don’t forget to vote in the 2024 Rosy Overdrive Reader’s Poll!

Mystery Fix – Life to Life

Release date: October 4^th
Record label: Gare Du Nord
Genre: Synthpop, indie pop, pop rock, psych pop
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Cinnabar

It might be unrealistic to hunt down and listen to every record associated with Anton Barbeau, but one could do far worse than trying. We last checked in on him last year upon the release of his double album Morgenmusik/Nachtschlager, but he’s been busy since then; as of late, Barbeau is one-half of the core duo of Mystery Fix alongside Tim Walters, the project’s founder. Walters, an Oakland-based “electroacoustic musician”, might seem like an odd collaborator for Barbeau (if anyone could be considered “odd” next to Barbeau, I suppose), but they’ve both collaborated with Scott Miller and The Loud Family–Walters contributing to Days and Days and Attractive Nuisance, Barbeau taking co-lead billing on What If It Works?–so they’ve got that in common, at least. After a few singles in 2022 and 2023, Mystery Fix has put together an entire full-length called Life to Life, and it’s clear that the combination of Walters (handling all the music aside from a couple of guest horn contributions) and Barbeau (the lyricist and lead vocalist, for the most part) is a winning one. It turns out that Walters has an ear for pop music and can put some great instrumentals to tape when the moment calls for it–the final product is a slightly more synthetic version of the irreverent, freewheeling pop rock of Barbeau’s solo career, and the vocalist is more than happy to meet the music where it’s at.

Walters’ electro-pop and synthpop creations are solid but not overly showy throughout Life to Life–typically, Barbeau’s vocals are the most prominent feature of the record. That doesn’t mean that Barbeau is all that discernable as a writer–for every relatively easy-to-grasp pop lyric like the easy, breezy, somewhat sleazy “Bask and Be”, there’s two tracks where he keeps literal meaning close to the vest. Not that songs like the whirling “Fragments” and the robotic “Insect Crawls” are completely opaque, mind you–every once in a while, Barbeau breaks through the freaky imagery to land something (“Whispers and rumors / The old water cooler / Lies and deception / Immaculate con job” in the former, “Once in a while next door neighbor smiles / Waves in a well meaning way, hello / Strapped to your chin, plastic human grin / You try but still you know” in the latter). One of the strongest moments is an entirely Walters-concocted number–“Cinnabar”, a really spare piece of almost-ambient synthesizer and uncertain but melodic vocals from the beatmaker. Barbeau takes the reins once Mystery Fix want to get a little more chaotic again–like in penultimate track “We Play Along”, where the horns squeal and Barbeau sings “Mingus, Monk, and Bird / The cosmic slop gets stirred / Music from the stars / Beams down into tiny cars”. Barbeau’s clearly bemused by this image, but it’s up to us to make something of it beyond that. (Bandcamp link)

Yuasa-Exide – Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring

Release date: November 8^th
Record label: Round Bale/Ape Sanctuary
Genre: Lo-fi indie rock, fuzz rock, noise pop, post-punk, lo-fi pop
Formats: Cassette, digital
Pull Track: RJR Nabisco Takeover

Douglas Busson is a Kentucky-originating musician who’s been a part of Minneapolis-St. Paul’s “sub-underground music community” for nearly two decades now. In 2021, Busson was left in constant pain and with limited mobility due to a spinal injury and subsequent surgeries–and he responded to these difficulties by making entirely too much music. From March 2022 to August of this year, Busson has (by my count) released seventeen full-lengths under the name Yuasa-Exide, as well as an EP, an outtakes compilation, and two “primers” pulling from these releases. He’s gotten help from some regular collaborators (Adam Bubolz, Matt Helgeson, and Emily Garber, among others), but the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by Busson himself. All of these records have been digital-only up until now; thanks to Mankato experimental label Round Bale Recordings, you can now hear Yuasa-Exide on cassette. Rather than going for the “discography-wide cherry-picking” approach of Busson’s digital compilations, the Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring cassette is simply the two most recent Yuasa-Exide albums–one on each side of the tape. What we’re left with is nearly an hour of unfiltered music from a persistent talent, an invigorating collection of lo-fi pop, fuzzy basement indie rock, and a few noisy experiments.

Information and Culture is the more accessible and “rocking” LP of the two to my ears, zipping through almost exactly thirty minutes’ worth of clanging, distorted underground indie rock that’s either on the scuzzier end of Flying Nun Records or the brighter end of Xpressway, and is likely going to be up the alley of anyone whose mind has even been blown by a Sebadoh recording. The lo-fi flag-waving is hardly surprising given everything about Yuasa-Exide, but the pop strengths are remarkable; throughout the record, song after song–“RJR Nabisco Takeover”, “Parallel Realities”, “Heaven’s Porch”, “Comfortable as Alex”–is just significantly stronger than the average lightning-quick self-releaser regularly pens (and I’m a big-time defender of a lot of those types, too). I don’t mean to make Naturally Reoccurring sound uninviting by comparison, but it’s a fitting B-side to Information and Culture’s lead-off slot–it’s more likely to echo than rock out, there are more confrontational moments, and even the record’s catchiest songs (the buzzing psych-fuzz pop of “Account Services”, the acoustic but forward-marching “I Never Turn Off the TV”) achieve their successes in a more roundabout way. The format of Information and Culture + Naturally Reoccurring is an enjoyable one–we’re dropping in on something remarkable happening in the upper Midwest, checking out the sixteenth and seventeenth albums from the project of a musician too busy to properly welcome us in but whose work is nonetheless worth the effort. (Bandcamp link)

Possum in My Room – POSSUMGHOST

Release date: October 18^th
Record label: Sad Marsupial
Genre: Alt-country, lo-fi indie rock, post-punk, gothic country, slowcore
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Roadkill

Rockaway, New Jersey’s Ted Orbach appears to be a classic Bandcamp toiler–dating back to 2019, their project Possum in My Room has put out a bunch of singles, EPs, and generally informal-seeming releases on a steady basis. As of late, Possum in My Room has been a trio rounded out by Claire Ruiz on bass and Konner Hunter on drums, and it’s this lineup that recorded their latest album, POSSUMGHOST, with Max Rauch at Domestic Bliss Recording. The resultant album is a full-band exploration of a dark Americana, influenced by slowcore and alt-country but without fitting neatly into either of those boxes. Orbach sounds like a biting folk rock singer possessed on some tracks, and smoothly fits on top of polished instrumentals on others. The thirty-five minute LP only has seven songs on it, so Possum in My Room are plenty sprawling throughout POSSUMGHOST, although they rarely strain themselves in the same direction twice (it’s probably reductive to say it reminds me of Neutral Milk Hotel just because of guest musician Thor Speeler’s singing saw contributions, but there’s something to that, I think, in parts of the album).

Opening track “Roadkill” is one of the more electric tracks on POSSUMGHOST, but it’s anything but a welcoming opening, as Orbach bitterly unspools a scene of chemicals, carrion, and vices over top of the agitated country-rock dagger of an instrumental. “&&&the Dogs are Howling in the Night” is the only other track on POSSUMGHOST I’d call a “rocker” with any kind of confidence, but it takes a different track to get there–its instrumental is minimal power-trio folk rock, leaving plenty of empty space for the titular line to echo over its significant repetition. In between and around these two tracks lurks the rest of the album, populated with thorny and uneasy songs like “Oystercatcher” and “The Song at the End of the World”,  both of which balance slow-moving beauty with the ugliness that never fully escapes Orbach’s writing. POSSUMGHOST certainly benefits from having a full band behind it (not to mention guests like Speeler and guitarist Dan Taggart), with the gothic folk of “No More Love//No More Death” and nine-minute closing epic “The Truth” reaching surprising places I wouldn’t necessarily expect a solo project to find. As the latter track finally staggers to a close, there’s a sense of relief, like the spirit of a hard-luck possum finally stepping out of its corporeal form. It’s not easy to make the feel-bad hit record of this winter, but Possum in My Room are on it. (Bandcamp link)

Schande – Once Around

Release date: September 27^th
Record label: Daydream Library
Genre: 90s indie rock, art rock, post-punk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Palimpsest

Most of you probably don’t recognize the name Jen Chochinov (aka Jen Schande), but she is a thirty-year indie rock veteran at this point, playing in American bands like Shove, Boyskout, and Schande at various times in her life. In recent years, Chochinov (who is also a history professor) has been living in London, and the current lineup of Schande (bassist Giovanni Villaraut and drummer Ryan Grieve) is based in the United Kingdom, as well. Chochinov has also done time in the Thurston Moore Guitar Ensemble (touring with them in 2018 and 2019), so when it came time for the first Schande LP in twenty years (and first record of any kind since 2019’s Pedigree EP), Moore’s Daydream Library imprint was the one who put it out. Despite Chochinov’s somewhat daunting background, Once Around is a pretty straightforward and accessible indie rock record–there are certainly moments in the nine-song, sub-thirty-minute album that feel like they were made by well-seasoned musicians, yes, but the LP feels primarily like a vessel for some sharp indie rock songwriting and to compliment the just-as-sharp interplay between the band’s three members.

Once Around does indeed sound like the work of a band with ties to Sonic Youth, although Schande mostly keep their guitar-forward, rumbling version of noisy indie rock to brief two-to-three-minute bursts. The most obvious example of this in the record’s first half is “Palimpsest”, an excellent version of droning, electric pop music from the get-go, but it’s hardly the only moment on the album where Schande turn their sights to big choruses and instrumental catharsis without any obvious academic hangups. “Apogee” and “Gregor MacGregor” both end up in this bliss zone as well; at their climaxes, Schande sound transcendent, achieving pop music perfection in an unlikely medium without sacrificing anything to get there. Impressively, Schande keep this winning streak going into Once Around’s second half–after the four-minute instrumental chapter-turner “Relevant Campaigns”, Chochinov, Villaraut, and Grieve jump right back into the thick of it. Well, they need a minute to warm up in the sprawling “Double Hackner”, but once the trio have locked in again, “We’re Not Twins” and “52 hz” ensure that Once Around is just as spirited and energetic in its homestretch as anywhere else on the album. Decades into their musical career, Chochinov and Schande seem most interested in making studious, disciplined rock music that’s still a blast to listen to, and Once Around is the rewarding result. (Bandcamp link)

Also notable:

• Ciao Malz – Safe Then Sorry EP
• Miracleworker – Upstate EP
• Shiverlane – Sketches from the Departure Lounge
• Walk Home Drunk + Dirtpath – Toulouse, TX EP
• Verboten – Life Expectancy
• Naked Roommate – Pass the Loofah
• Tim Heidecker – Slipping Away
• Fucked Up – Someday
• SILLY – 0 Views
• Zenxith – From the Corners of My Cold Room / Thursday
• Heather the Jerk – Not Very Motorcycle
• Thus Love – All Pleasure
• Aux Caroling – Most Likely You Ho Ho Ho Your Way (And I’ll Ho Ho Ho Mine) EP
• Ian Hinkley – The Last Cool Summer
• CS + Kreme – The Butterfly Drinks the Tears of the Tortoise
• The Fods – Don’t ARgue
• Johanna Warren – The Rockfield Sessions Vol. 2
• Kid Dakota – Praegustator
• Aan – Over the Mountain
• Tony Leonardi – Don’t Go Alone
• Little Moon – Dear Divine
• Victor Fernandes – Hide in the Shadows of the Quiet
• Bongo Frontier – The Highest of the Great Gallants
• Various – Side by Side, Vol. 4
• Various – Mandatory Liberation Vol. 1