Having followed Orchid Mantis for a number of years, we’ve had the opportunity to chart the development and evolution of a project which embraces the ebbs and flows of life. Thomas Howard has released six albums under the moniker since its inception in 2015, and each has felt like a response to the last. Be it the shared retrospection and loose narrative threads connecting Kulla Sunset and Yellow House, or the considered decision to move away from the past-orientated style on the most recent record, Far From This World.
The latter felt fully focused on endings, the sense of finality before new directions, so it is fitting that forthcoming record Visitations, out this autumn on Z Tapes, sees new possibilities come to fruition. Even if the directions are not necessarily those Howard set out wander. “I wanted to make a really quiet, droning record without any electronics; something slower and moodier than what I’ve done before, which didn’t really end up happening,” Howard explains. Because amid work on the record, his personal circumstances underwent significant changes for the better, something mirrored in the compositions that emerged. “I was writing and recording incessantly about this one thing, and ended up with something really focused and hopeful.”
Which isn’t to say the original intentions were shelved entirely. “There’s a lot of acoustic guitar,” he continues, “a choice that carried over from my original ideas for the project. I really wanted to make something more organic.” This desire extends further on several tracks, the live instrumentation extending to pianos, clarinets and sampled saxophone, though it is telling that Howard says these are the older songs on the record, as though the release serves as a kind of map for his progress from one frame of mind to another.
Lead single ‘Never Knows Best’ invites us inside this newfound optimism. With its combination of the organic and electronic, whatever nostalgia present in the soundscape is shaken up by the pressing drum line. The track as a whole feels like an attempt to push beyond the past, keeping a clear-eyed focus on the present and what comes next. So while the imagery is often strange and haunting, with references to angels and ghosts and beams of light, Howard refuses to take his eye from what is before him, and emerges with a steadfast will to progress.
and never knows best
whatever comes next
i’ve made up my mind
i’ll see things through
to the end of the line
Visitations is out on the 1st October via Z Tapes and you can pre-order it now from the Orchid Mantis Bandcamp page.
