Today, Orchid Mantis, the project of Atlanta's Thomas Howard, shares new single "Comedown Phase" and announces a new LP, In Airports, which will be self-released on November 7th. Orchid Mantis is a multi-genre project, drawing inspiration from 90s bands like Low and Slowdive, and has racked up millions of streams with zero promo and no record label.
The first line of In Airports, Howard's second full-length album of 2025, references data degradation or “generation loss” as a metaphor for the fragility of memory and mental experience of aging into adulthood. In the context of his greater catalog, this comparison could serve as a mission statement, a central conceit of his songs. Fittingly, In Airports is a retrospective synthesis of the many disparate genres and sonic ideas that have been explored in his earlier work: Four-track cassette recording, deformed samples and a surrealist approach to production, adjoined with nostalgic and introspective songwriting.
There are hints of a newly confessional approach to lyricism that is plainspoken and direct for Orchid Mantis. On the title track, Howard directly examines his relationship to music-making and how it has changed: “I made it all about me / Is that a tragedy / Used to put my headphones on / Escape into a new song.” This sort of self-interrogation emerges from an obsessive devotion to recording music that now spans more than half of Howard’s life. The omnivorous instrumental approach of his production has only deepened from several years spent taking detours into focused genre experiments. And so, In Airports attempts to re-establish Howard’s core musical affect as it stands today, filtering his older signature through a lens of dubby dream pop, sparse slowcore, and maximalist shoegaze.
Howard worked on In Airports for almost three years, noting “I sort of underwent a crisis as I became a more confident producer and instrumentalist. The more I could imitate or recreate a sound, the more I would confront demos I'd made and think ‘this is good, but it doesn't feel like it’s mine.’ This was a new problem for me. I scrapped two albums worth of semi-finished material, carrying my personal favorites over to this final release. As a result, it's probably my messiest record, but I grew to appreciate that. It’s a full genre-map of everything I’ve made over the last ten years. I made sure every song meant a lot to me.”
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TOUR DATES
10/11 Atlanta, GA - Masquerade / Altar w/ Peel Dream Magazine