After the release of their first two records in fairly quick succession, Origami Angel have earned a victory lap. Having hewn close to their emo-pop roots across 2019’s Somewhere City and 2021’s Gami Gang, their new mixtape The Brightest Days sees the DC duo pinging back and forth between ukulele riffs and vicious breakdowns, Beach Boys backing vocals and, well, vicious breakdowns, or ska bridges and, uh, vicious breakdowns in the same track across the release.
Presumably the decision to release The Brightest Days as a mixtape rather than a proper album permitted Ryland Heagy and Pat Doherty—along with producer Drew Portalatin—to let loose and allow their scattered memories of summers past guide the various unexpected directions the release takes. Strung together by Heagy’s familiarly rapid-clip vocal delivery constantly assuring himself summer 2023 couldn’t possibly be as dull as that of 2020, the often-downcast lyrics do little to bring down the mood of this eight-song release. “Recording this record was one of the most fun experiences in my entire life, and there was a genuine sadness knowing that it was coming to end,” he shares in conclusion to his track-by-track breakdown of the release.
With the tape dropping last Friday via Counter Intuitive Records, stream the whole thing below and read on for more of Heagy’s words.
1. “The Brightest Days”
This was the second song written for the mixtape, and it always gives me a lot of confidence as a writer if I know how the project is going to begin. I wanted something fresh for us to start out this project, and as basic as it may seem, the ukulele intro was a huge leap for us. We don’t do too much acoustic-based stuff on records like this, so stepping out toward ukulele even is a bit outside of our typical approach. When listening back, this song has a youthful and sort of hopeful tone that the rest of the record plays with, but kinda turns on its head.
This was the first song we worked on while recording guitar/bass/vocals with Drew in Jacksonville, and a lot of what we tried out ended up being staples on the mixtape. Vocally, this song has a much different vibe than a typical Origami Angel song, and something Drew really pushed me on was selling that vibe to start out this project. I leaned into a side of my voice I haven’t really used too much for this band, but starting here helped us realize where we wanted to go vocally for this record, leaning into what every song allowed us to. The full band intro riff might have some of my favorite drums Pat has ever laid down for us—you can just feel the energy embedded into the percussion.
2. “Thank You, New Jersey”
We tried to incorporate a lot of beach and surf music clichés here, which isn't something we’d usually try. I thought it was a funny idea to utilize those motifs which are usually seen as this “California beach summer” thing, but apply it to the typical New Jersey beach—which is a completely different experience, highlighted by overcrowded beaches and industry creeping up on the oceanfront. This was the first song written for The Brightest Days, and it definitely helped pave a way forward for the mixtape’s vision. This one’s always gonna be dedicated to my mom, born and raised in Metuchen, New Jersey.
3. “Picture Frame”
This one’s about staying in and sleeping all summer, which is how my 2020 pandemic summer started. That May/June, when I started writing The Brightest Days, I was going through some medical situations that kept me pretty tied down to one space, and this song sorta describes how motionless my life was (for a few reasons) with the summer creeping around the corner. Basically everyday felt like a repeat of the last, and I wasn’t doing much productively other than trying to get rest and heal from what I was dealing with, and also writing some of these songs in between.
Vocally I sound so tired and almost asleep, and some songs were even way slower than they needed to be just because of my medical situation. This song is sorta an homage to that. We had to speed it up about 10 BPM. The song—specifically the pre-choruses and chorus—sounds more ’70s than anything we’ve ever done, and has an acoustic/electric hybrid vibe that I think really sells that.
4. “Kobayashi Maru (My Very Own)”
In contrast to the first and third song, this track is straight speed and surf energy. Easily the fastest song on the album and has left turns around each chorus, including a ska section and a breakdown. This one’s just supposed to be fun! One of my favorite parts on the record is in the second verse here, where there’s gang vox in the background over an upstroke guitar and drum rhythm. In the last phrase, the gang vox cut out and a much more intimate, up-close falsetto vocal takes its place. It stays in that spaced-out world for about half a second until the harder chorus comes back in. We were able to spend a ton of time working on that while recording, just trying to sell the part as two extremes, and it came out as one of my favorites sections on the whole mixtape!
5. “Second Best Friend”
This is a rock ’n’ roll song for sure. This song had the most work done on it in the studio, layering synths and vocals at the end, a synth lead early in the song, and playing around with different acoustics for almost a campfire feel in the pre-chorus. This was a song I always felt a little weird about as a demo, but showed it to friends who assured me it was their favorite song on the project. Drew and Pat both told me several times that they’d be upset if the song was cut, so I decided to see it through and take it into the studio. In the end, I actually really loved how the track came out, and couldn’t believe there was a time where I envisioned this record without it. “Second Best Friend” was a very trust-the-process song for us. I tried to remember some of what summer meant to me as a teenager in this track, and it ended up being sadder than I thought it would [laughs].
6. “Looking Out”
This song was written in about as much time as it takes to listen to. When working on the first song on the album, I banged this riff out on ukulele and just kinda freestyled vocals that are more or less what you can hear now. Drew and I wanted to capture the simplicity and innocence of this track, so we recorded both ukulele and me singing at the same time. There’s no vocal editing or anything on the track at all, so this is the most vulnerable my voice could ever be.
The memory of recording this song is burned into my brain forever. It was late at night, I had my shoes and socks off in the living room, and all the lights were off, sans a few candles. The studio Drew works out of is connected to a few restaurants and coffee shops, and it was around closing time for a few. We could lightly hear some people playing music off a bluetooth speaker and singing along while closing, and it sounded like everyone was having a good time with each other. Honestly it just added up to a great vibe I’ll never forget, and since it was live and one take-d, I can hear that vibe in the song with every listen back.
7. “My PG County Summer”
This is probably my favorite song on the record. Incorporating the county we come from and aspects of what it’s like to be an actual resident of the DC area. Something I’d hear often in grade school was “You should be grateful to live in such a historically rich area,” which I do think is true, but when it’s superimposed over the reason some other people travel to DC, it’s easy to see the irony. Each year there’s a March for Life, where the city is flooded with anti-abortion protestors who come from around the entire country, filling up the Metro that usually transports the city’s residents. That’s what the song was written in reference to; but only a few months after writing it, the January 6 capitol storming occurred. It’s a surreal experience knowing that the ideologies of most people who live in the city couldn’t be further from those who use the city as a convention center for nationalist right-wing bullshit.
8. “Few and Far Between”
We try to have every record come full circle. The Mid-Atlantic East Coast is known for its crazy summer rain storms, and each year it seems like it’s raining harder and longer than before. The rain here is both real and metaphorical, as the sunny feeling we used to know seems hidden behind some sort of immovable curtain of clouds. We wanted to start the song as innocent-sounding as some of the early tracks on the record, but flip it on its head in the middle. The second verse has the same vocal melody as the first, but presented underneath minor chords, instead of the major chords in the first verse. It starts off isolated then builds up, and lyrically it's much more cynical than anything presented before it.
After a second chorus and instrumental section, it comes down to a third chorus, which starts out with a bunch of vocals and ukulele before stripping itself down to just one ukulele and one vocal track, repeating the first lyric of the album—but this time in a much more defeated tone instead of the hopeful, bright interpretation the record starts with. The last lyric you hear in this song is the last thing we recorded for the album, because we wanted to get the feeling of closure and almost sadness across. Recording this record was one of the most fun experiences in my entire life, and there was a genuine sadness knowing that it was coming to end, and I think you can hear that along with the message in the last vocal line. In “Few and Far Between” lies the answer to the question posed earlier: The brightest days are fewer than ever, and with further than ever before in between.
