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visitations

by orchid mantis

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €8 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Leftovers after Z Tapes were shut down. Last copies, no reissue will be ever made.

    NOTE: Due to format limitations, the last track "High Places" will not be included on the vinyl pressing. We are disappointed, but the length of this album doesn't allow any other decision unfortunately :(
    All vinyl orders will include a download code for the full album.

    Each purchase will include Z Tapes stickers, thank you note, and the brand new vinyl!

    Includes unlimited streaming of visitations via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 21 days

      €13 EUR or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Manufactured and distributed by Kunaki.

    Includes unlimited streaming of visitations via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Most of my discography on CD for a limited edition lower cost :)

    (If you want a specific set of CDs that isn't one of these two options just include that in the purchase note on Bandcamp and I promise you'll get the ones u selected!!)

    (Includes a download code for Visitations - email me for codes of any other album if ya need em!!)

    Includes unlimited streaming of visitations via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      $33 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    My full CD discography for a limited edition lower cost!!
    includes download code for Visitations - email me for codes of any other album upon request :)

    Includes unlimited streaming of visitations via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days

      $43 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Leftovers after Z Tapes were shut down. Last copies, no reissue will be ever made.

    Cassettes were available in a limited edition of 100 copies and will be shipped from Slovakia.

    Each purchase will include traditional Slovakian sweets, Z Tapes sticker, thank you note, and a brand new tape!

    Includes unlimited streaming of visitations via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 21 days

      €10 EUR or more 

     

1.
the days turn into nights it all blurs together when you're on my mind every time, waking up under moonlight but you're not there i see angels in the air and nothing's really as it seems i can feel time beckoning and never knows best whatever comes next i've made up my mind i'll see things through to the end of the line like a ghost you'll show up in picture tubes radiowaves and cassette tapes that's all any of us are just waves and light shining way too bright
2.
let you into my head will there be anything left of me in the end in the end, i'll be there in the end, i'll be there driving on the highway at 6am and i'm staring at the moon again think of you again i know that there are tunnels inside your mind you won't go back there again close them off instead can we live and die and know nothing of it? work our whole lives and leave here with nothing? we'll fly around and forget to exist world without end don't know anything after all it takes a lifetime to get back to the start and it's all in writing on endless walls and we'll be rewritten when all this is gone
3.
think that i've seen everything the sun comes out eventually it feels like i'm just waiting here don't know where i was last year always on my mind i've been aching all the time but i know things will be alright i know things turn out alright falling when the light comes through calling just to talk with you i'm sleeping all weekend although this wasn't what you had in mind all good things take time i'll be there when you feel down and i'll be there when you want me gone think of every word you said change is all that's permanent i'll cling to every second and never hesitate again there's never time time for everything you want to say and do but all my time's well spent when it's with you
4.
think of you when the nights all feel the same when you're tired of carrying that weight there's a time and a place for everything in every day and in every conversation never felt at ease i could live so peacefully bled the apathy out i'll be waiting this out sunlight streaming into your room i can't wait to be there heaven again, i'll be patient for you as a kid i would dream so vividly i recall when i felt things differently don't think i'll ever know just what i want miss the places i saw when i was young in the dead of night watch the shaking trees outside blinding lights hover out in your backyard from your dreams what has passed into your life
5.
it won't be very long things that you counted on will return just in time it will all be alright spend my time every day waiting for things to change but i know it's a waste to be living that way change your mind think about you all the time there's a space in my mind that your face occupies and i know it's the best thing i've got in my head
6.
deep in a dream i'll see you when i sleep night casts a spell on your memories turns them into new ones after you leave i'll be fleeing the scene far overseas will you remember me can i really be what you want
7.
light rays 03:41
i've been wrong about everything i've done did my best trying to please everyone now i think maybe i should pick my friends yeah i think maybe i just need to rest i've been wrong i never really know i never really know what's right on the coast, can you feel the tide come in and the embers in the wind will you still think of me when this is gone will you be there after all all that i've got is safe in your heart all that i've got is safe in your heart hear your name echo in my favorite song i'll be out, tracing light rays from your sun and i know there's no endings till it starts can i have new beginnings on and on and on all that you've got is safe in my heart all that you've got is safe in my heart now we never have to be apart now we never have to be apart
8.
you don't say a word but i can hear your voice as if it were in my head wonder where you are continents apart seven thousand miles across it's the reason i wake up with my head so clear think about the last time that you were here and it'll take some time to see you again i'll wait every day in agony till then i can wait till then i can wait till then i'll make it till then i can't wait till then carved into the moon messages to you more i live, the more i find something in this life rewards sacrifice things are balanced out in time be there in the end after everything posters on your wall answer when you call when the night wears you down it won't be long after sundown comes to you i'll run
9.
you said you don't try too much see it even in the shimmering light think the best that you can do is be fair and hope it follows you ursa major eyes watchin over us time is catching up will it be enough guess that things will be alright i'm just really missing you tonight only in your dreams you see me, waiting in your memories i only see you in my dreams, you're waiting in my memories
10.
half asleep i remember being in the backseat of my parents car listening to some vague song i watch the lights passing after it gets dark never feel that way again lie with me wake up in the field of reeds i dreamed of in that car rivers run through everything i think in a strange loop forget everything i knew and we're all in conversation with our fate i keep on hearing quiet sermons whispering silently in twilight only sometimes late in the evening when there's no one listening and detuned organs humming softly i can feel memories fading always live through endings every day everything will go away but till then i'll talk with you all night no one else feels right i'll do anything to wake up next to you again always felt the weight of things i'll never tell but you know well the days will fold in on themselves and i'll get by on things that no one else describes i'll clear my mind with images of you and i i think i am lucid from now on
11.
soul shapes 04:41
i've seen you in all of my dreams it's the closest i can get if you need me i'll be around every second of every day so stay my light it's all i've got although i know i can't be there tonight heaven's not a place that you go its a flower that never unfolds as long as i know the shape of my soul i'll be okay on my own so stay my light it's all i've got although i know i can't be there tonight
12.
high places 08:09
i remember the lights from the apartment when we would hover over edgewood that sense of harsh reality obscured when you are standing over a high place knowing you direct this life and anything is possible including death here and now a tumultuous life of energetic release all around or sedentary death across years and years and years and years i remember mountains in norway and the apartment by the college campus smoking with my friend on the fourth floor balcony and the same feeling in both places staring out towards empty space and things far away. cities, mountains from a high place and i knew i'd probably never see that friend again after things fell apart for him and i'm ashamed that i never felt any meaning in that weighty truth until it was gone years later on life is blurry when in motion only clearer when it's passed like in photographs and things seen from far away in high places i'll become happy with what i was never happy with before life is just passing things attachment to what is temporary and only beautiful for a short time

about

8.20.2021 ~ "Visitations was written and recorded over about two months earlier this year during a period of significant personal change. After recording Far From This World - an album fixated on endings, it felt important to create a counterpart to reflect all the new beginnings that followed. Change always gives and takes. I wanted to try some things on this record I wasn't confident enough to attempt in the past - longer, droning songs and minimal electronic pop. Its title could refer to funeral gatherings, spiritual or divine visitations, the appearance of loved ones in dreams, etc. This album is vaguely about all those things. It's also about distance and time, and how they separate individuals - in proximity and in death, before and after."

Visitations is Orchid Mantis' sixth full length release since 2015, alongside numerous EPs and instrumental projects - a testament to Howard's restless devotion to his craft. At 24, Howard has quietly built a reputation around a unique synthesis of meditative, emotionally direct pop songwriting, surreal instrumental flourishes, and production that sounds worn down by years of sun exposure. The album contains his most optimistic batch of songs to date, but that wasn't the initial goal: "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." Personal circumstances changed drastically - for the better - and the new compositions took a brighter turn. "I was writing and recording incessantly about this one thing, and ended up with something really focused and hopeful."

The album was assembled quickly and obsessively without second thoughts, in a fashion Howard hadn't pursued since the rudimentary 4-track cassette experiments of his 2014 debut Hessdalen Light. Although the mist of disfigured synths, drum machines and tape fidelity that defined earlier releases is left intact, the album is full of instrumental departures and tweaks to Howard's sound. "There's a lot of acoustic guitar, a choice that carried over from my original ideas for the project. I really wanted to make something more organic. That's why the last few tracks, some of the oldest songs included, embrace more live instrumentation - pianos, clarinets, sampled saxophone, etc."

The middle third features a pair of songs, Change Your Mind and After You Leave, inspired by an ongoing fixation with minimal electronic composers like Rei Harakami, Boards of Canada and Khotin. The lyrics are uncharacteristically referential, reinterpreting literary sources from ancient religion, contemporary fiction and philosophy, while drawing from popular media in equal measure. "There's a couple clear references I'm hoping people will pick up on. I just really enjoy that sort of intertextuality when I listen to music, having a trail of breadcrumbs to follow."

The final track, High Places, is an outlier in Howard's discography, for its length and for its lyrical focus. It is almost entirely acoustic, shifting and evolving around a repeating guitar motif that grounds his unusually straightforward self-reflection on change, memory and the passing of time. The song ends and then begins again, ends and then begins again, droning on and on. As it fades out, you can hear a chair moving, and Howard's voice: "It's gonna loop again in a sec." Audio from an old VHS tape his friend recorded in high school begins to play.

"I'd still be doing this even if no one ever heard it. I get bored if I go too long without it, and if it wasn't music I'd be making something else. The challenge is the point for me. Adjusting the formula, seeing what happens. Iterating just a few more times. Everything else comes and goes, but I get to keep this one thing."

credits

released October 1, 2021

All songs written, performed and recorded by Thomas Howard, with the exception of Soul Shapes, which features additional guitar by Neil Hay Young & piano by Alexandria Ipsis, and High Places, which features clarinet by Alexandria Ipsis

Mixed and mastered by Thomas Howard

--
Check out Neil's spotify:
open.spotify.com/artist/0tgGrSFRXmNF0hJ90aidSr
And check out Alexandria's bandcamp:
harandirthegrey.bandcamp.com

ZT194 ~ Z Tapes Records ~ 2021

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orchid mantis Atlanta, Georgia

found sounds, tape collages, and pop songs about forgetting.

booking/contact:
latesummersun@gmail.com

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