Hotel Fiction
On the deluxe
version of their 2024 album Staring at
the Sun, out on February 27th, Jade Ireland Long (piano, vocals) and Jess
Thompson (guitar, vocals) pull back the curtain on the early years of the
singular creative partnership that is the Athens-based band Hotel Fiction.
Crystallizing the first phase of their music as they prepare to move into the
next, their musical telepathy is on full display on the release. Across 14
tracks-including four new songs, which they dipped into their archives to
find-the album ranges from nostalgic rock to intimate indie folk. The music has
a theatrical bent in its ease of storytelling; Ireland and Thompson are
troubadours traversing a range of sounds and stories as they relay the
struggles of seeing friends move away,
relationships, dopamine addictions, and heartbreak, while
staying grounded by nature,
which evokes a connection to something deeper, to something ancestral. It's
fitting that Staring At The Sun harkens
back to Hotel Fiction's roots, when the two started playing together in
college, because the crux of the project is still and will always be their
friendship. "We're traveling on this journey together," says Thompson. "We've
always said we're soul sisters, but it does feel like that kind of different
closeness that feels familial and deeper. We're always trying to deepen that
connection and want to be a close part of each other's lives and create
together."