It really does sound preposterously silly, this concept. So let me be the first to exclaim my surprise at what I’m going to call its charming effectiveness. You see, Orca Mug is not only the chosen moniker for JJ Posway’s (scooterbabe, Aprotag) new solo endeavor, it’s also, in fact, his favorite mug, one that serves as the de facto face of the project. If you think that pointlessly absurd, well, you may be right. But there’s something gloriously surreal about his compositional approach, something bold, distinct, and deliriously avant that allows the gambit to succeed.

In fact, we’re halfway through the year and no release has struck me in quite the same way as Orca Mug’s debut, Yeah, The Void. It’s pop-leaning electronic music only in the broadest sense; what sets it apart is the way Posway deftly layers his high-gloss beats and candy-coated grooves with ambient bits of spoken word and personal field recordings that lend his tracks a certain cinematic flair. It reminds me of Nomen Novum at his most adventurous and playful, only with more deliberate hints of darkness and existential despair peering through the cracks.

“We Are Very, Very Small” is the second single to be revealed from the EP, following in the footsteps of the more somber and serene title track that Flagpole premiered a few weeks back. At first listen, it feels somewhat scatterbrained — just a series of random electronic rattles, bleeps, and bells bound together by a spiraling keyboard line and pulsing synths. But then a recording of a young woman’s voice enters, lending some textural ambience and narrative structure to the track. Before you know it, patterns are beginning to emerge in all that seeming randomness; little melodies and tiny details popping out in stark relief like John Nash cracking secret codes in A Beautiful Mind. It’s an intoxicating experience floating through all these varying strands and watching them collide and resolve in such elegantly harmonious ways.

“You can see Jupiter from here, how can anything else matter?” goes the track’s final lines. After listening to Orca Mug’s majestic, exploratory vision, I couldn’t agree more.

Yeah, The Void is out tomorrow via Bandcamp.

More Info
Bandcamp: orcamug.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @orcamug
Instagram: @orcamug
SoundCloud: @orcamug