Pressing Concerns: The Bird Calls, Asher White, Sam and Louise Sullivan, Off Contact

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In this brand new Monday Pressing Concerns, we’ve got new albums from The Bird Calls, Asher White, Sam and Louise Sullivan, and Off Contact; check them out below!

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.

The Bird Calls – Take Leave

Release date: August 28th
Record label: Ruination
Genre: Folk rock, singer-songwriter
Formats: CD, digital
Pull Track: Means More Now

New music from Sam Sodomsky and his project The Bird Calls is always welcome, and thankfully the New York-based folk rock singer-songwriter and music critic seems regularly happy to oblige. New Bird Calls records have been (at least) yearly occurrences all decade, and last year’s entry into the oeuvre, the more polished, 80s-influenced Melody Trail, was a high point in his discography (and we also got a collaborative EP with Izzy Oram Brown as a nice bonus). This year’s Bird Calls album, Take Leave, continues Sodomsky’s collaboration with producer Ryan Weiner that began with Melody Trail, but the two take a step back from some of that album’s more synthetic touches on this LP. That doesn’t mean, however, that Take Leave is a complete return to the straight-up one-man acoustic band sound of early Bird Calls, though; effectively, Sodomsky and Weiner embrace a warm, simple but robust folk rock sound throughout the album (Sodomsky writes that they were shooting for “more of a live sound” on Take Leave; I assume the duo didn’t magically play several instruments at once, so they’ve done an admirable reconstruction in that case).

Most of Take Leave isn’t quite as hushed as the leisurely, pensive folk-country opening track “Some Bands”, nor is it quite as animated, electric, and (relatively) fist-pumping as the second song, “Means More Now”. Take Leave finds a middle lane and stays in it, more or less, though the lane is wide enough to encompass the subtly expansive heartland rock sound of “Clockwork”, perky folk rock like “Acid Mermaid”, and beautiful quieter ballads like “Shadow Song” (not a Mountain Goats cover, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an intentional nod) and “Learning to Sing” (which is one of those conversational, instantly-charming songs-about-songs that form the core of The Bird Calls’ appeal to me). Same time next year, hopefully. (Bandcamp link)

Asher White – Love Aggregates

Release date: August 28th
Record label: Joyful Noise
Genre: Art pop, indie pop, experimental pop, chamber pop
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track: The Eagle Is No Omen

I first heard Asher White’s music last year thanks to 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living, the latest in a long string of releases from the Providence, Rhode Island-based artist and her debut for Joyful Noise Recordings. At the time, I called it “one of the wildest albums I’ve heard this year” and admitted that while I didn’t like everything White tried, I really enjoyed some moments of it. Twelve months (and one remake of Jessica Pratt’s self-titled album) later, White has returned with Love Aggregates, a gorgeous pop album that zeroes in on the aspects I loved most from 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living. Don’t get me wrong, Asher White is still a weirdo musician, but her eccentricities are focused relatively cleanly on making 70s-inspired baroque/chamber pop this time around. Just about everything on Love Aggregates is ornate pop music–in the first half, we get delicate opening track “Reverie for Work”, the R&B-influenced “My Day at the Casino”, the electronic touches of “Memory Patient (Motor Cycle Angel)”, and the folky “White Castle Sad”. Another remarkable wrinkle to Love Aggregates is that many of its “wildest” moments are also its catchiest ones, like in the somewhat messy, electric power pop of “Stage Diva” or the synthetic, bass-led minimal banger “The Eagle Is No Omen”, which might be my favorite song on the LP. It takes a very good musician to make the kind of music Asher White has made, and an even better one to rein it in and focus it like she does on Love Aggregates. (Bandcamp link)

Sam and Louise Sullivan – Love & Devotion

Release date: July 24th
Record label: Historic New Jersey
Genre: Pop rock, folk rock, soft rock, R&B
Formats: Digital
Pull Track: Down on Love

The Philadelphia-based sibling pop rock duo Sam and Louise Sullivan debuted in 2021 with a self-titled EP, and full-length albums quickly followed in 2023 and 2025. Both of those albums came out via Historic New Jersey Recordings, the label and studio that also recorded and released Love & Devotion, the third Sam and Louise Sullivan album. Historic New Jersey is run by Kevin Basko of Rubber Band Gun, and they’ve helped make albums from The Lemon Twigs, Star Moles, Lightheaded, and Thank You Thank You, among others–it seems like they’ve fostered a community of indie musicians making music inspired by 60s and 70s folk and pop rock, and Sam and Louise Sullivan fit right in with this movement. Unlike a lot of modern bands who try to recreate this kind of laid-back, “studio-based” 1970s music, Sam and Louise Sullivan keep the recordings crisp and clear, the arrangements simple, and the pop hooks front and center. There’s nothing “psychedelic” whatsoever about the fist-pumping retro-pop success of opening track “Down on Love”, and what follows this impressive start is nine more songs of infectious pop rock with bits of soul, folk rock, and soft rock in their DNA. It’s an incredibly fresh listen, and one that bodes well for Sam and Louise Sullivan and the kind of pop music Historic New Jersey has facilitated. (Bandcamp link)

Off Contact – Can You?

Release date: July 31th
Record label: Self-released
Genre: Post-punk, art punk, psychedelia
Formats: Vinyl, CD, digital
Pull Track:  Anew

Hailing from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Off Contact are an art-punk quartet who marry jagged post-punk foundations with psychedelia, off-beat guitar pop, and shoegaze distortion. Unsurprisingly, their latest album Can You? is thus kind of unclassifiable, other than being “very good”. The band (drummer Brogan Costa, bassist Pat Nelson, vocalist/keyboardist Qarl Koyzer, and guitarist/saxophonist Simon Keller) make indie rock music that is vibrant, serious, and multi-faceted; combined with Koyzer’s somewhat petulant yelp of a led vocal, I can’t help but being reminded of Game Theory listening to this album, even as the differences between the two acts are nonetheless myriad. Opening track “Anew” is seething, streamlined, and incredibly catchy; less straightforward moments like the saxophone odyssey “Haven” and the fuzz-rock thunderclap “Heart and Mind” still contain very obvious “pop” traces. Off Contact barrel into Can You?’s second half with the five-minute post-punk fever dream “Side”, the fiery rock and roll of “Stakes are High”, and a krautrock-evoking psych-rock closing track called “This Is a Stick Up”. Off Contact are good at what they do, and they do quite a lot on Can You?. (Bandcamp link)

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