Round Rock music

Resin: “I Think I Love You”

Creatives can find inspiration pretty much anywhere; naturally in the world of art, but also through the process of nurturing, be that in helping others brush up on their talents, or simply in bringing a piece flora to fruition. Well, just a stone’s throw away from Austin out in Round Rock, high school art teacher Kristi Holthouser and plant producer Mae Sanchez have been reaping what started off as a mere seed of friendship a decade back with their passion project Resin.

True to their handle, Resin’s jam sessions secrete a viscous mix of styles composited from Sanchez and Holthouser’s individual experiences with a myriad of players and producers in Central Texas and on the West Coast. And although stirring things up in the same room is always preferable, the duo didn’t have that convenience at the top of COVID, leading Resin to reference a previous in-person blueprint before building on it one remotely inserted stem at a time.

The finished product “I Think I Love You”, is a damn good piece of alt-psych daytime disco, whose infectious indie pop repetitions remind us of what Guts might sound like if they’d had enough of someone’s guff and slowed down to tell ’em off. With Sanchez on hypnotic six-string, Holthouser holding down the haunting main melody, and the pair sharing beatmaking and lyrical duties, we think “ITILY” and its retro-meets-modern aura has staying power throughout the summer and well beyond.

Alex Gaw: “Something Behind”

It’s not really an industry secret that some of the very best songwriters are the most patient ones, the ones who soak up a ton of pre-existing stuff before ever playing their first note. And needless to say, if you’re close to the Live Music Capital of the World, you and your creative sponge are in pretty good shape.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Alex Gaw became a father in his mid-30s, settled down a stone’s throw away in Round Rock, and moved up from guitar and ukulele lessons to fulfilling, honest songwriting. On top of inspirational Austin mainstays like Bob Schneider and Matt the Electrician, Gaw’s biggest influences include Metric, Fleet Foxes, jazz, and Joy Division.

Gaw seems especially struck by that final act, considering the original title of his sophomore single explicitly name-dropped Joy Division’s infamously tortured frontman. But even after just one spin of “Something Behind”, its indie-folk eclecticism (which features Wilson Marks on electric guitar and loops), fine-tuned dynamics, and lyric-less refrains will leave you agog to hear more from Alex Gaw, wherever his next muse may lie.