If you want to experience something that Sirius XMU wouldn’t dare play in their tedious continuous mix of The National, St. Vincent, and Japanese Breakfast, how about something from LA DIY indie rockers Origami Ghosts?
Their new folky jangle-pop album A Fine Time to Talk About Nothing (out Aug. 8) embraces the punk rock spirit with a childlike glee. Written while touring through Europe and the U.S. and living in Paris, Seattle and Austin, this is an album that embraces adventure and exploration as it delves into themes of love, death, intimacy, drugs, counterculture, and emerging technologies.
Origami Ghosts has had many iterations, but always with JP Scesniak (vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica, synth, beer can) as the primary songwriter. He’s joined on this album by Cassandra Wulff (synths, piano, flute, vocals), Ben Kendall (drums) and Jacob Leavitt (cello). The album was engineered and mixed by Sam Rosson (Death Cab for Cutie, Macklemore, Great Grandpa, Deep Sea Diver, Sydney Sprague) at the Hall of Justice Recording Studio in Seattle, the same studio where Nirvana recorded Bleach.
Glide is premiering the freak folk track “Philip the Bison” from Origami Ghosts, something that would meander between the worlds of The Mountain Ghosts and The Dead Milkmen at their most experimental.
The song finds Origami Ghosts on tour through the Rocky Mountains learning about how Native Americans would use a dried bison’s bladder as a canteen. “We met some goat farmers in Lander, Wyoming who told us all about the area, and how the natives would use these bison bladders. It really made an impression,” says Scesniak. “Also in this area, we kept seeing so many Sacagawea road signs that we ended up naming our van Sacagawea, like she was guiding us. So I merged the two things together for the song.”
“Philip the Bison” takes a page out of the book of esoteric ‘60s psych-folk legends The Incredible String Band, while the chorus contains elements of lovely Modest Mouse weirdness. It’s a song of travel and the idea that water is life. Scesniak sings, “She knew the way west to east / Like Sacagawea, she knew the way / She knew the way was peace!”
