Atlanta Soundtrack: New music by Rose Hotel and Omni, and vintage Indigo Girls

Rose Hotel – ‘Not Like That’

Following the release of her 2021 EP, The House That We Knew, Rose Hotel, aka multi-instrumentalist Jordan Reynolds, returns with the first taste of her sophomore record, A Pawn Surrender, due out June 7 via Strolling Bones Records.

Melding airy psychedelia with her signature knack for Americana-informed indie rock, lead single “Not Like That” explores the aftermath of friendship breakups over grounding flourishes of piano and pedal steel twang. The accompanying music video (directed by Emilia Brock), shot by Pedro Rocha, features wistfully bittersweet vignettes (montaged as reverently as the very supersized supercuts one might catch at the video’s primary shooting location, Atlanta’s historic Plaza Theatre) teased with plenty of allusions to A Pawn Surrender’s central cue: the chess board.

“I was playing a lot of chess when I wrote this album, so I started to think about these songs as if they were all different pieces on the board representing varying aspects of my songwriting, personality and experience,” said Reynolds. “Each piece has its own specific purpose and its own strength to utilize, but you can’t play the game with only your queen or your knights or whatever. That became such a comforting idea and ethos to operate within — not just accepting variety but finding its inherent value. I went into the studio without any fear of being all over the board.”

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Omni – ‘Compliment’ 

On their first album in five years — Souvenir — post-punk trio Omni tread territory that is both dependably catchy and unexpectedly welcome. Wading through their classically staccato rhythms and mathematical bass lines, the closing track, “Compliment,” features a chugging guitar solo that borders on the Beatlesque, a rollicking groove that cleaves through the typical choppiness (for all the sound symbolism psychology enthusiasts out there, picture bouba taking kiki’s hand) without tumbling into tired nostalgia. A postmodern meditation for the, quote, “post-postmodern world,” doomscrolling luddites and the fast fashion-fatigued alike will find cheeky solace in the wry quips and wiry hooks of “Compliment.”

Souvenir is out now via Sub Pop. Below, watch the “Compliment” music video, directed by Zach Pyles and AJ Holder.

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Indigo Girls – ‘Closer to Fine’

For those feeling Oscar-snubbed, our Vintage Track of the Week goes out to you.

In the pantheon of Atlanta’s musical legacy, few songs resonate as deeply and enduringly as the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine.” Thanks to its recent inclusion in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie Barbie, “Closer to Fine” has enjoyed a revival in popularity with a new wave of young listeners connecting to its universal musings of self-discovery and existential acceptance. 

Released in 1989 as part of their self-titled album, “Closer to Fine” bridges the introspection of Tracy Chapman’s folk with the restlessness of the alt-rock scene that was steadily simmering around the duo in Athens, Georgia. Its soaring harmonies and acoustic ease made it the definitive stuff of road-trip sing-alongs, and “Closer to Fine” quickly became an emblem of soul-searching resilience — a philosophical withstanding that underpins the act’s legacy of tackling environmental justice, LGBTQ equality and indigenous rights through both music and activism.

As decades pass, the placement of “Closer to Fine” within the cultural zeitgeist is legitimized not by that of a GRAMMY-winning platinum record nor by hot pink dream houses but by its indomitable spirit and diaphragm-belted lessons to be belted for decades to come.

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Lindsay Thomaston is a photographer and culture writer with a background in media and politics. Her work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Rolling Stone, i-D, Dazed, Fashionista and Immersive Atlanta, among others.