Earthblog

Origami Hands brings their sound out of the bedroom
Story and Photos By Elliott Johnston
Thursday, 13 May 2010

Teresa Sosa (left) and Katie Whittle (right) of Origami Hands

Teresa Sosa and Katie Whittle are sweet girls who talk like sailors. During their brief, intoxicating songs, they half-mask personal love tales with surreal language, and use minimalist instrumentation to sail listeners into a warm introspection. Then, to balance the vibe (and to not come across as too touchy-feely), they talk about their cats and drop f-bombs.

“I think that too much emotion can make people uncomfortable,” Sosa says. “We’ll be like, ‘Okay, I’m going to spill my guts to you, and then we can all laugh about it.’ Our music is really heart-felt, and can be really raw and emotional. But when you talk to us, we’re goofsters.”

“We talk about our cats onstage a lot,” Whittle says.

“But that’s okay,” Sosa says.

“Yeah, it’s totally fine and acceptable,” Whittle says.

The two 20-year-olds are longtime friends and roommates. They began their Fort Collins art-folk band Origami Hands about three years ago. At first, the ladies primarily performed at house concerts—which are often good prep for a young Fort Collins group that doesn’t play a bar-ready strand of rock, bluegrass, or Americana. Origami Hands weren’t so serious at first, but friends’ encouragement soon convinced them that they had a good thing going.

Last summer, with the help of local producer Ben Thompson, the group recorded their debut album Oh, Goodnight. The CD is short, but the sound is thick. Over eight songs and 18 minutes, the ladies concoct an emotive and cohesive atmosphere: their voices intertwined and entrancing, their slowly enveloping, eccentric instrumentation giving loads of space for the mind to wander. Whittle, who is admittedly untrained on her lapsteel, her charango, and her imbira, finds instinctive rather than extra-technical ways to get her sonic points across.

Listen to an mp3 of "Bastard Child" here

The lyrics cut between specificity and surreality. On “Caves,” Sosa turns the simple joy of watching a nature documentary with her father (a musician whom she says is her biggest influence) into a dream-landscape first, and into a sobering look at family dynamics second. On “Bastard Child,” Whittle recollects of doomed relationship, but not without sleepily laying the listener down on a August lawn and scorching his senses: “Summer’s a hot place for lovers/and the sun is too bright for my eyes.”

This humid, spacey goodness; the ladies call it bedroom pop.

“Yeah, I think the ideal situation, if you are going to purchase our album, is that you get it, and then you listen to it in your room when you are cleaning your room, or you are with a lady, or your lover, and you are just kind of laying on the bed talking to them,” Whittle says. “It’s not necessarily sexy music, not necessarily sleepy music, but...”

“It could definitely be sleepy music though,” Sosa says. “If you can fall asleep in eighteen minutes. I can.”

Origami Hands are playing their first CD release on Saturday, with the help of Adam Pitner (from local group Fierce Bad Rabbit) on drums. It is Whittle and Sosa’s biggest move as a band yet; they’ve played plenty of shows, but they’ve never headlined and worked this much on promotion.

“I just want people to think that we are nice,” Whittle says. “And that we are so stoked about what we are doing, because we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Fort Collins. We wouldn’t be making music if it wasn’t for people asking for it and wanting us to play.”

“I’m really excited about the CD Release because it’s the weekend after finals gets out,” Sosa says. “Everyone is going to be downtown, and it’s going to be pretty cheap, so maybe people will just stumble on in. And maybe they’ll like it. Maybe they won’t remember our name, but…”

“It’s scary and intimidating to me,” Whittle says.

“I think it’s fun,” Sosa says.

Butterflies aside, with Origami Hands, singing has never been an issue. In fact, Whittle and Sosa’s vocals are the whole point.

“I get nervous about playing the instruments,” Whittle says. “But belting a song out, I have no problem with. I want to be Aretha Franklin.”

“I want to be Beyoncé,” Sosa says.

Origami Hands CD Release w/Christina The Hun, Pollination Population, and Sour Boy, Bitter Girl, Saturday, May 15, Hodi’s Half Note, Fort Collins, 8pm, $5.