Boring Ecstasy: The Bedroom Pop of Orchid Tapes

OCT039 | Released March 25, 2014
12" vinyl (second pressing) / Download

When the artists releasing music through Brooklyn-based label Orchid Tapes talk about the imprint, it sounds like they are describing a support group instead of a business. “It’s the idea that anything good enough, no matter how much publicity or fans the artist has gathered, deserves love and attention,” said Infinity Crush's Caroline White in a recent interview. “It feels like a bunch of friends.” Boring Ecstasy: The Bedroom Pop of Orchid Tapes serves as a strong introduction to this tight-knit community, and highlights what makes it stand out during a time when anyone with Internet access can conceivably start a label.

A devotion to intimacy and earnestness unites the musicians on Orchid Tapes, and those qualities have been part of the label’s DNA since Warren Hildebrand, who's also behind the dreamy Foxes in Fiction project, founded Orchid Tapes in 2010. Initially, he created it as a way to release his debut album Swung From the Branches in a physical format), but soon Hildebrand connected with other bedroom-based artists via Myspace. Since then, his label's released music from the likes of Coma Cinema and Ricky Eat Acid, whose Three Love Songs served as their first vinyl release earlier this year.

[...] Boring Ecstasy focuses on love gained and lost, usually against the backdrop of everyday happenings. “What’s the point of the leaves changing color/ I can’t watch them change with you,” Julia Brown’s Sam Ray sings on "Without You", the words out of step with the music surrounding it, underlining the desperation contained within. “The overall idea that we try to go for is releasing music by people who are really dedicated and put a lot of themselves into their music and don't try to follow any passing Internet trends or anything,” Hildebrand told Interview Magazine, and that comes through on Boring Ecstasy, a collection of music from bedroom artists unafraid to lean in close and expose their feelings, all while never sounding one bit alienating.  

- Patrick St. Michel, Pitchfork