“The song is a product of me writing songs about everything, all the time,” says Origami Ghosts’ JP Scesniak of “Virtual Reality Boy.”
The track is a poignantly pubescent highlight from the self-released A Fine Time To Talk About Nothing, Orgami Ghosts’ fifth LP and its first in six years. Available August 8, the album was engineered and mixed by Sam Rosson (Death Cab For Cutie, Macklemore, Deep Sea Diver) at Seattle’s Hall Of Justice Recording, the same spot where Nirvana recorded its debut, Bleach. A Fine Time’s giddy sense of adventure is rooted in an intense period of flux for Orgami Ghosts, its songs written while they were touring like crazy and living in Paris, Seattle and Austin.
The trio was on a much-needed summer break in Olympia, Wash., when a friend broke out the virtual reality goggles. “We all took a turn, and it really left an impression on us,” says Scesniak. “I couldn’t shake the experience.”
Later that day, Scesniak gathered with current members Cassandra Wulff (synths, piano, flute, vocals) and Ben Kendall (drums) and the recently departed Jacob Leavitt (cello) at a local swimming hole, where the song began to take shape.
“I kept rattling off these lines and melodies about a virtual reality boy, and it kind of took off from there,” says Scesniak.
To top it off, Scesniak threw in another VR experience with Wulff’s friend in Los Angeles. “She had the latest version of these photographing/video sunglasses, which I’m sure are now very old and greatly surpassed in their technological prowess,” says Scesniak. “I pieced together ideas about being in this virtual world and going back and forth between being all in and not wanting it at all. That’s kind of where I lay, I guess. I love a tech-free life. But at the same time, I’m addicted to technology old and new.”
We’re proud to premiere Origami Ghosts’ “Virtual Reality Boy.”
—Hobart Rowland
