As far as labels with a singular vision go, Orchid Tapes is a pretty reliable source for bedroom-confined capsules of melancholy that never quite reach the depths of despair plumbed by their peers in the folk and emo scenes. The latest LP from Aaron Powell’s Fog Lake project falls right in line with these releases, with lead single “Jitterbug” exemplifying both the artist and his label’s penchant for lush and multi-layered recordings that could very well have been crafted by one person alone in a studio apartment.
The first track from Tragedy Reel, true to the record’s name, explores the dull pain of mentally returning to your home town, with dampened piano and deflated percussion defining the track’s numbed demeanor. “‘Jittberbug’ describes the degeneration of first love from my adolescence to the present,” Powell shared in a press statement. “I was shifting feelings toward my surroundings and how drastically things have changed over the years. The lyrics: ‘This town lights up for nobody at night,’ is about the solitude found living in a place that once fostered dreams and hopes, but now feels desolate.”
Hear the track below, and pre-order Tragedy Reel—out April 23 via Orchid Tapes—here.
