Sounds of the City

The Ginger Envelope Releases Edible Orchids, But Is Already Looking To Tomorrow

originally published November 14, 2007

Spend enough time in Athens, and you start to assign its qualities to certain local bands. Five Eight sounds like a night out that starts earlier than you expected and keeps on going. Ham1 summons thoughts of weird drunken late-night porch parties. And there's a feel to late summer in Athens; everything's a little lazy and mellow, and maybe you find yourself alone with someone you've been eying all season long, but there's a slight sense of melancholy knowing that the students will soon flood back and the air'll crisp up soon. Few are better at conjuring that time in town than the Ginger Envelope.

Edible Orchids is the name of the band's new album, and its 10 tracks send out a breezy, hazy sort of vibe, an easy-going but heartfelt sincerity that the group has been perfecting over the past four years. Vocalist-guitarist Patrick Carey has an entrancing coo, a delivery that's intriguingly both sandpaper and velveteen. He first started performing with local pedal-steel player Matt "Pistol" Stoessel (Lake City, South San Gabriel, Summer Hymns, ex-Grand Fury) in 2002, and, in 2003, the full-band lineup solidified with Jason Robira on percussion, Jason Trahan on guitar and Stephen Miller on bass (all formerly of Urbosleeks, and playing variously in Dark Meat, Ceramic Dvck and Venice is Sinking).

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Like the jangly country-folk tunes of the band, the process of getting Edible Orchids together has been a slow-going but worthwhile endeavor. Following a low-key EP release in 2004, the band recorded the songs on Edible Orchids in two separate sessions at the Downtown Athens Recording Company studio, one in late 2004 and the other in late 2005. Mastering and finalizing things happened in summer of '06, and now, at the tail end of 2007, everything's ready to go.

"The record's a complete log of what we put into it at the time," says Carey, over drinks at Flicker recently. "I feel good in the sense that it cleared the path for what's to come… Edible Orchids kind of shaped itself, and we went along watching it, kind of helping to put things in place, but it really had its own thing rolling and we directed it. It ended up being so unified, I was actually surprised. It was one of my biggest concerns, considering how much time apart the two sessions were."

"There's not a thing about it that I think we could've done better at the time. I really love it," says Robira. "Those songs we developed in the studio, and we were still kind of figuring out how the band worked. And DARC was just starting - I think we were their first project. The second time we went in, we were a band, and the studio was a studio."

Carey says the long time from start to finish wasn't intentional; that's just how things worked out due to personal schedules and finances. "We're all kind of really bad at self-promotion, honestly, and have a lot going on in our personal lives. So by the time Edible Orchids ended up being mastered," he says, "I'd already written a lot of new stuff and we'd been playing the other material, so the time came to catch the newer shit when it was fresh, and we started recording the second album before we even knew that this one was going to be released. So now, we're kind of backtracking and balancing both things at once."

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In fact, the band already has a second full-length 60 percent recorded, and plans to wrap it up in December with an eye on a spring release. "Our voice as a band, our life experiences, what I was going through when I wrote the first album and the songs on this next one… I think it's pretty different," says Carey.

"And recording stylistically, it's different," says Robira. "We definitely took more of our time and planning to figure out what we wanted [on the upcoming album]."

Once this next one's in the bag, the Ginger Envelope hopes to get on the road, though not necessarily in some big cross-country way. "I'd like to make short jaunts," says Carey. "Even with our five-piece band, to make it worth our time and money to drive across America, [it] would have to be worthwhile and the money would have to be there. We're not all kids anymore. That said, I would like to make jaunts of a week or two - Chicago and back, New York and back, that sort of thing. And getting overseas is a main priority, like Belgium and Holland and Spain… If we're going to put a lot of funds into going across the country, I'd like to see how viable it'd be to go overseas instead."

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Edible Orchids is seeing a national release via the New York/ Vermont label One Percent Press, with 1,000 copies of the album printed and a vinyl pressing planned for later this year. "One Percent's been nothing but supportive," says Carey, "very wide open and sweet about everything. They're more of a press, doing comics and stuff like that, but they've always been big fans of ours and wanted to work with us from a long time ago."

Adds Robira, "They wanted to put out our record without ever hearing one recorded note."

This week's show at the 40 Watt Club offers a chance for local audiences to check out songs both new and old, as well as get to ahold of the new album. Everyone who pays the $8 to get into the show also gets a copy of Edible Orchids, an offer also employed to great success by opening act Venice is Sinking back in '05 for its CD release show.

Additionally, the Ginger Envelope will perform two full sets: "We're going to play the record straight through, then take a break, then play another set of newer stuff," says Carey. "We're really looking forward to it, since it's been a while since we played a regular show. There was the [Wynburn Ave.] street fair, and before that was AthFest, but just a regular Ginger Envelope show has been a while. We've all been gearing up towards this show, and I want this to be the crux of our efforts for now.

"I'm really kind of surprised because I had taken for granted that a lot of people in town had already heard the stuff on Edible Orchids, because some of it's been online, and some people have had burned copies for a while, given away or just kinda circulating. But I'm really excited for new people to hear it, and it's nice that past efforts are seeing the light of day."

Chris Hassiotis

WHO: The Ginger Envelope, Venice is Sinking
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Thursday, November 15
HOW MUCH: $8