Ghost Orchard is the recording project of Sam Hall, an 18-year-old singer-songwriter. Hall creates "blissful static" from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan—detailed sonic sketches that serve as musical recesses from the tribulation of everyday life. Today we're debuting "October 2013," the first single off his new full-length cassette, Bliss. It's a consolatory piece adorned with feathery guitars, and it fits snugly aside the rest of the homemade pop songs in the Orchid Tapes catalog. For a couple meditative minutes, Hall's song offers a brief reprieve from adolescent anguish. I watch it all begin to end, he sings. Does he mean high school? His childhood? A romantic relationship? All of it, maybe.
"'October 2013' is the unexpected calm in the storm," Hall told The FADER in an email. "The change in tone (and fidelity) in the song is very purposeful and comes from a place where I was falling in love and very confused with the state of my life—dealing with depression and high school and balancing that with feelings of love and confusion and the anxiety of the aftermath. 'October 2013' is a place where you can sit down and catch your breath, despite how quickly everything is changing around you." The Bliss tape drops April 8th via Orchid Tapes; the Brooklyn-run label is also re-issuing last year's self-released, home-recorded album, Poppy.
