Pressing Concerns: Thomas Dollbaum, The Cords, Studio Electrophonique, Technopolice

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We’ve got four records coming out tomorrow (Friday, September 26th) in the Thursday Pressing Concerns! A new EP from Thomas Dollbaum and new albums from The Cords, Studio Electrophonique, and Technopolice. Also, if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Léna Bartels, Bones Shredder, Baltimore at an Angle, and Big Cry Country) or Tuesday’s (Fig Dish, Closed Quarters, Grant Pavol, and Wide Orbit), 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.

Thomas Dollbaum – Drive All Night

Release date: September 26th
Record label: Dear Life
Genre: Folk rock, alt-country, singer-songwriter
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Angus Valley

The New Orleans singer-songwriter Thomas Dollbaum put out an album in 2022 called Wellswood that I didn’t really connect with, but I’m glad I gave Dollbaum another shot with Drive All Night, because I really like this one. Dollbaum has recently been touring the country playing shows with the likes of Tony Jay, Lily Seabird, and Cash Langdon and his latest record is out via the always great Dear Life Records, so he’s been on my radar, and Drive All Night is a really lovely six-song folk rock EP that delivers on a fair amount of potential. The Bandcamp page for the EP mentions heady names like Damien Jurado and Richard Buckner; it’s not wrong to, and I hear David Bazan and Owen Ashworth in Dollbaum’s voice, too. Dollbaum reaches back to his Florida upbringing in these six songs, with guitar from Josh Halper and backing vocals from Kate Teague aiding the singer-songwriter through acoustic folk pieces like “Whippits/Trailer Lights”, “Lives of Saints”, and the title track, the EP’s one rocker (the sadness-tinged ecstasy of “Angus Valley”), and the alt-country-dressed “Warlock’s House”. Drive All Night is more stripped-down than Wellswood, and its writing is quite personal, but the hushed closing track “William Duffy’s Farm” doesn’t feel any more intimate than the bombast of “Angus Valley”, per se. It’s something Dollbaum and his collaborators pull off throughout the entirety of Drive All Night. (Bandcamp link)

The Cords – The Cords

Release date: September 26th
Record label: Slumberland/Skep Wax
Genre: Indie pop, power pop, jangle pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: October

A new indie pop band on Slumberland Records, huh? Eva Tedeschi and Grace Tedeschi are The Cords, a duo from Greenock, Scotland who are now about to release their debut LP after a stream of singles that began last year. The Cords’ sound should be a recognizable one for guitar pop fans–they’ve built their self-titled first album via an amalgamation of groups like The Vaselines (for whom they’ve already opened), Heavenly (whose members’ current label, Skep Wax, is releasing The Cords in the United Kingdom), and the roster of K Records (in particular, I hear a bit of Tiger Trap here). They fit right in with current labelmates like The Umbrellas and Jeanines, and (like these acts) they stick out on a crowded and well-traveled road due to unflagging energy and pretty unimpeachable songwriting. The Cords cram a baker’s dozen indie pop nuggets into their first impression, doing their absolute best to seize their moment. For “October”, “Vera”, and “You”, The Cords crank up the electricity just a bit to rip through some quick indie-pop-punk, “Doubt It’s Gonna Change” leans heavily on prominent handclaps, “Yes It’s True” is very nearly noise pop in its distorted main riff, and “When You Said Goodbye” ends things on a dreamy note. The Cords gives us the grand tour, and it could very well just be the beginning. (Bandcamp link)

Studio Electrophonique – Studio Electrophonique

Release date: September 26th
Record label: Valley of Eyes
Genre: Indie pop, soft rock, jangle pop, dream pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: David and Jayne

James Leesley spent the 2010s fronting Sheffield guitar pop group High Hazels, though in recent years he seems to be putting out music via a solo project called Studio Electrophonique. After EPs under the name in 2019 and 2022, Leesley is finally releasing the first Studio Electrophonique full-length, a self-titled LP on new imprint Valley of Eyes Records. Like the old analog recording studio from which the project takes its name, Studio Electrophonique’s influences come from decades past: Leesley talks about writers and performers like Carole King, Burt Bacharach, and Dusty Springfield, as well as “60s French cinema”. It’s all presented in a distinctly “British indie pop” way: soft rock built from delicate vocals, drum machines, and lots of Casio keyboards (“Pipe Organ mode”). I can’t get away with not mentioning Belle & Sebastian here, although the bossa nova-influenced indie pop of recent Peel Dream Magazine is probably a more accurate comparison. Studio Electrophonique moves through eleven songs at a leisurely pace, the opening lazy indie pop of “David and Jayne” beginning a collection of sleepy, floating melodies and writing that does indeed feel in conversation with “pop music” from a half-century or more ago. There’s a lot worse you could than to listen in on the discussion. (Bandcamp link)

Technopolice – Chien De La Casse

Release date: September 26th
Record label: Howlin Banana/Idiotape/Ganache
Genre: Garage rock, power pop, garage punk, synthpunk
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Regretter Après

Nothing wrong with a bit of French garage rock, certainly. Today we’ve got a quartet from Marseille (members: Léo Joussellin and Charles Priem on guitar and vocals, Zacharie Capitant on bass, and Jules Massa on drums) who’ve played in local bands like La Flemme, Flathead, and Avenoir before coming together and dropping a pair of EPs in 2022 (Technopolice) and 2024 (In Your Pocket). Technopolice and its members already have a bit of history of their own, true, but they also come off as true fans of current garage rock/power pop/“egg punk”, naming everyone from Prison Affair to Gee Tee to R.M.F.C. as influences for their music. There’s a bit of that “Australian sound” in Chien De La Casse, their debut full-length–it’s really catchy, high-speed garage rock where the hooks are just as likely to come from squealing keyboards as Joussellin and/or Priem’s vocals, but it also certainly fits in with what’s been coming out on their local(ish) label, Paris’ Howlin Banana (Lùlù, TH Da Freak, Cathedrale). Choppy post-punk, garish synths, and garage rock energy collide obviously in the biggest hits like “Regretter Après” and “Hellastic Mr Pox”, and aside from the lo-fi psychedelic pop turn of closing track “Puke”, Technopolice are masters of brevity. These are quite good students. (Bandcamp link)

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