Orange Milk Launches Split Series
10.5.14 by Mike Haley

Orange Milk has been beyond consistent in their campaign of finding unique and misfit sounds, sheltering them in head-juicing aesthetics, and releasing them upon the Earth. Or at least a few hundred of it’s inhabitants, depending on edition sizes. Today they came as close as a cassette label can at creating a universe all of it’s own with the Orange Milk Split Series. The initial four denizen of this nutso zone are Drut PD, Larry Wish, Elegance, and CH Rom, each seeing how far they can stretch pop music before it snaps. That’s the theme here, as it reads on the Orange Milk site: “experimentation within the pop music setting. Each song question the meaning of pop music in 2014 by employing sparkling electronics, bizarre baritone vocals, tangential song structure, and a sense of freedom and joy at the prospect of manipulating a catchy tune”. And a boulder-sized “bravo” is deserved by everyone involved here for injecting severe imagination into what can so easily be a stale mold.

From the moment Drut PD breaks ground with three awkwardly wonderful songs, a bubbly fantasy with anxious crooning (Drut delivers lines like “Cant believe it. Here she is falling. Falling all over the barn” like a congested Thomas Dolby), to CH Rom’s sexy cyborg rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s Fire, you know you’re in a good place. Sandwiched between is Larry Wish, who has graced the Orange Milk roster before, spending almost ten minutes in a curious cloud of triumphant upsurges and fruit fly swooshes and Guerrilla Toss alum Kassie and Peter busting a trio of Julie Ruin-esque weird wave hits. This inaugural volume of OM’s split series is a spectacle of playful vibes for ears that want to be challenged, and a dope sign for future installments. No doubt.

Oh, and the artwork. Don’t get me fucking started on the artwork. I mean, seriously, don’t your eyes feel so happy just looking at that orange wizard and space ninja or whatever the hell those lil’ guys are!? Gorgeous. Maybe that is how everyone will look when entering this world Orange Milk has created. If so, I want some sort of half hawk / half warrior situation going on. Are request even being taken? Oh yeah, it was designed by Jordan Speer.

Listen now! Buy now! Repeat.