Next month sees the release of Lily of the Valley, the new record from Will Kennedy’s 22º Halo. Released via Tiny Library Records, the album is an emotional one, focused on Kennedy’s wife’s brain cancer diagnosis and the pair’s life since. We have shared several singles previously, including the ‘Virtual You’ and its dose of cyberspace nostalgia, and the husband and wife duet ‘Bird Sanctuary’. Both tracks displayed the easy lo-fi nature that Kennedy projects so well, small and soft indie pop songs that handle real-life struggles with a shining sense of hope. “Ultimately the heavy stuff is not the lasting feeling,” we wrote of ‘Bird Sanctuary’. “Or at least it doesn’t drag you down in the way you might expect. It’s leavened into something uplifting with that trademark 22° Halo sense of almost naive wonder at the simple things all around us.”
Now 22° Halo have released one final single before the record comes out at the beginning of November. Titled ‘Orioles at Dusk’, it is another slice of wistful but quietly joyous indie pop. The Orioles of the title is this time not an ornithological reference, but a baseball one. “[The track is] about falling in love with Kate for the first time,” Kennedy explains, “and canvassing outside Baltimore Orioles games over the summer.” The atmosphere captures these feeling perfectly, combining the heart-fluttering buoyancy of new love in the peppy percussion and sparkly guitar and the sweet-sad sunset feeling of twinkling city lights beyond a summer evening ballgame.
Oh man the game won’t be over ’til ten
Baltimore orioles at dusk and I’m in love
Lily of the Valley will be released via Tiny Library Records on 8th November. Pre-order it now from the 22º Halo Bandcamp page.