Feb 17, 2025
Swimming Pool by Billow
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Swimming Pool by Billow
Atlanta, GA -- Orchid Mantis (aka Thomas Howard) is set to release their new album Far From This World on November 20 via Z Tapes. The newest single lifted from the record is “light beyond (right now)”. The track spans just under 4 minutes long but it’ll really take listeners on a journey. With warm, low toned vocals to the lo-fi layers, “light beyond (right now)” has a reflective nature to it - almost like watching life move backwards slowly. The dreaminess of the song is intoxicating but as it gradually builds up, Orchid Mantis snaps us out of a dream state and into the light.
far from this world by orchid mantis
On the track, Howard states “Light Beyond (Right Now), like many tracks from the new album, contains some of my most direct and personal lyrics to date. This year has been a tumultuous one for my own life, involving the shedding of many things I relied on for stability in my life: moving back home after living with the same roommates for several years, the dissolution of a 3-year relationship, graduation from college, etc. This is of course compounded with the larger issues we're currently facing worldwide and in the US, which have only cemented my belief that radical, transformative change is necessary for this world just as much as it is always necessary for internal growth.
The lyrics discuss initial feelings of confusion and loss, hope for a brighter future, and both the recursive anxiety and personal rediscovery that come with the disintegration of one's attachments.”
Connect with Orchid Mantis:
Twitter | Instagram
2/17/20.
I did not set out to post another release from Z Tapes (Slovakia). I saw the name “Baseball Gregg”, was intrigued and then saw the band was from Stockton. I was listening to “Young” and then noticed this is a vinyl release from Z Tapes. So, consider this an unintended three-fer. Yahtzee!
Baseball Gregg are a pop duo from Stockton (original home of Pavement). This has a reverby sound reminiscent of The Sea Pinks, Franky Flowers and DIIV. Their earlier cassette, “Ciao For Now” has a Barcelona (Simon Basic) feel to it.
The Bandcamp “liner notes” for calendar mentions this bands love of XTC. While they don’t sound like XTC at all, I love that they appreciate the efforts surrounding “Skylarking”.
NEWEST SEASONAL FALL COMPILATION.
Kulla Sunset is now on Soundcloud & Bandcamp! https://orchid-mantis.bandcamp.com/album/kulla-sunset “In sound, memories can be stitched together like a collage. There, they may create new associations and unique narrative forms. Kulla Sunset pulls from some of my strongest memories - both recent and long passed, distant details and places lost. These songs are arranged in a cycle: Beginning in the daylight, they follow the setting sun into night and finally into the dawn of morning. Somehow, this suits my own sense of memory: In the same way light leaks into a camera, leaving impressions on the film, every instance of my recollection contains traces from the glow of memories past - perhaps most strongly from the glow of the Kulla sun.”
i'll be around by Fog Lake - Contains samples from Special Memory by Jerry Butler and the Shortwave Numbers Station recording of Cherry Ripe
February by Billow from the EP IV
light rays by orchid mantis from the free Z Tapes Sampler 2021