Pressing Concerns: Phosphene, Marbled Eye, Radhika, Trevor Sloan

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Welcome to the Thursday Pressing Concerns! We have an album from Phosphene that came out earlier this week, plus three new records coming out this Friday, May 22nd (new LPs from Radhika and Trevor Sloan and a new EP from Marbled Eye). Check them out below, and if you missed Monday’s blog post (featuring Me at the Zoo, Rob & Ellen, Avery Island BCE, and FOND), check that 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.

Phosphene – Velveteen

Release date: May 19th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, shoegaze, piano pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Heaven

A nice little album you might’ve heard if you were reading Rosy Overdrive in 2023 was Transmute, the third album from Portland, Oregon duo Phosphene. Rachel Frankel and Matt Hemmerich named dream pop acts as the main influences for that LP, but I myself was drawn to its “surprisingly muscular” sound (that nonetheless didn’t fit neatly under “shoegaze” as the duo declined to bury Frankel’s vocals). They’re back now with their fourth album, Velveteen, which Phopshene describe as coming out of “a period of intense personal adversity informed by abandonment and uncertainty”. There’s a notable sonic shift in the duo’s sound here too–the electric, fuzzy, dreamy indie rock is still present on about half of the album, but the other half of the LP explores different realms of indie pop. Pianos, slower tempos, and an overall pensiveness pervade some very strong pop songs on Velveteen, trending towards chamber pop and even the “soft rock/sophisti-pop” axis. 

Opening track “Heaven” is as loud and hard-changing as anything on Transmute, but it’s a bit of a red herring as only “Lupo”, “Everyone”, and arguably “Black Ring” rock as hard as this one does. Second song “Warding” breaks out the “piano pop” instincts, but its propulsive beat and Frankel’s strong melodic vocals ensure that the “pop” half is strongly represented here. “Wire” also combines the more delicate musical palette with an unquestionably pop-forward attitude, and even the quietest piano song on the record, “Too Late”, is carried by Frankel’s voice. Velveteen is a “beauty in pain” album if I’ve heard one; Frankel’s voice tackles lyrics that do indeed sound uncertain, abandoned, and occasionally despondent, counterbalanced by a firm musical foundation that sounds like it couldn’t be further from crumbling. It’s as impressive as it is enjoyable to listen to. (Bandcamp link)

Marbled Eye – Forever

Release date: May 22nd
Record label: Digital Regress
Genre: Post-punk, garage rock
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: The Guest

In 2024, the Oakland post-punk quartet Marbled Eye came roaring back after a six-year gap between releases with their sophomore album, Read the Air. It was a constant barrage of music equally at home in the realms of Australian punk rock, British post-punk, and American garage rock; it’s a treat to have them back relatively quickly after that LP, despite guitarist/vocalist Chris Natividad also being busy with a host of other bands (Blue Zero, Aluminum, Tanukichan, Public Interest). Marbled Eye recorded the six-song Forever EP earlier this year with their former bassist Andrew Oswald, and their latest record finds the group (Natividad, guitarist/vocalist Michael Lucero, drummer Alex Shen, and bassist Ronnie Portugal) picking up right where Read the Air left off.

If anything, Forever cements Marbled Eye as a band operating at their peak in the present tense, as their 2020s output has now more or less matched their initial mid-to-late 2010s run. Natividad and Lucero each sing three songs according to the credits, but their voices are similar enough that I wouldn’t have known who was doing what otherwise. There’s a catchiness to most of Forever that takes a bit to come into focus–the guitars and rhythms in “Something’s Different” and “Stubborn Mind” are actually pretty enjoyable in the record’s first half, for one. Despite the overall pessimism of “Negative Outlook” and “The Guest”, the EP’s final two songs nonetheless find Marbled Eye at their strongest and most natural-sounding. If gloominess is the fuel on which Marbled Eye runs, their future ironically looks quite bright. (Bandcamp link)

Radhika – Cine-Pop

Release date: May 22nd
Record label: Glass Modern
Genre: Dream pop, indie pop, psychedelic pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: Since Yesterday

Radhika Meera Dade is a second-generation Scottish indie pop artist; her father, Sushil K. Dade, played in groups like The Soup Dragons, BMX Bandits, and Telstar Ponies as well as making music as Future Pilot A.K.A.. The Future Pilot notably brought the influence of Indian music to the Glasgow indie rock scene, and the younger Dade’s debut solo album under the name Radhika does indeed continue her father’s lineage both in its foundational indie pop and in these extra wrinkles. Cine-Pop is out through Glass Modern, the “resurrected” version of Glass Records (The Vaselines, Matthew Sweet, The Jazz Butcher) and apparently features contributions from current or former members of Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, and The Pastels.

The album’s indie pop pedigree is unquestionable, but I didn’t know most of this when I first listened to Cine-Pop–and it sounded like a strong song-forward, guitar-based dream pop album in its own right. Compared to the last indie pop album I heard that incorporated Indian pop music as an influence, Forest Bees’ Between the Lines, Radhika’s dream pop is less electronic and could even be described as “folky” in some places. The non-rock elements are still here (listen to that nice trip hop beat on “Sleep”, for instance), but Cine-Pop is just as likely to offer up strong guitar-centric indie pop like “Starry Eyes” and “Since Yesterday”. Now that I know more about Cine-Pop, I can easily say that this breezy first statement doesn’t feel burdened by its weighty background at all. (Bandcamp link)

Trevor Sloan – Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay

Release date: May 22nd
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Baroque pop, soft rock, chamber pop, folk-pop, twee, indie pop
Formats: Vinyl, digital
Pull Track: Barcelona

Trevor Sloan is a musician from Toronto who’s been quietly and steadily making music in the realms of folk-pop, soft rock, and indie pop for over a decade now (first as Phono d’enfant, now under his own name). I first heard Sloan in 2024 when he released his sixth solo album, A Room by the Green Sea, which I compared to Belle & Sebastian, “the lighter side of Stereolab”, and tropicalia-era Peel Dream Magazine at the time. Back again with Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay, Sloan continues his pursuit of ornate, polished pop music recorded in his home studio with his seventh LP. If you aren’t charmed by an underground musician who lists Donovan and Piero Piccioni as his main influences, Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay is unlikely to convert you, but for those open to such possibilities, this album contains quite a few strong examples of the craft. It’s not until the fourth song on the LP, “Graffiti on the Dam”, that Sloan stretches a song longer than three minutes–perhaps the clearest example of Sloan’s “indie” side is his willingness to let a short song stay as short as it wants to be. Sparrows Sing While Leaves Decay confirms Sloan still has the ability to nail the wintry, chilly niche of folky chamber pop/twee pop, and there’s always a place on Rosy Overdrive for forays into it as strong as this LP. (Pre-order link)

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