Track Premiere: Otis Infrastructure — “In a Room / Out of a Room”

Posted: 12th October, 2023 by The Editor

Otis Infrastructure — a three-piece NYC-area indie rock band — seem pretty comfortable living on the line between construction and chaos. The vibe’s right there in their name; when I asked them about the origins of the name Otis Infrastructure on a zoom, vocalist/guitarist Dean Essner described it thusly: “In high school I was trying to make music with a friend and we were throwing out two random words, just word vomit: what are two words that sound wacky or cool next to each other? And I was like, what about Otis Infrastructure? He was like, ‘That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.’ Fast-forward five years, I said, ‘I’m going to start writing my own songs,’ I slapped the name on a poster, and it’s been the name ever since. It creates this weird dissonance, but there’s something intriguing there.”

You could say the same for Otis Infrastructure’s music, which takes straightforward indie rock and adds a bevel of experimentation — in tempos, tones, song structure — to throw the listening experience off-kilter. “In a Room / Out of a Room,” the dual singles premiering right here on The Alternative, are the first songs off Otis Infrastructure’s upcoming album (In A Room, due out January 2024), and they lay themes of pandemic isolation (“You never know just what you have / Until you mourn the lack”) over a constantly shifting rhythm section. “We like to think of ‘In A Room’ and ‘Out Of A Room’ as sibling songs, or perhaps the inverse of each other,” says Essner. “These songs harken directly back to the darkness and insularity of the deep pandemic days while also being about the everyday absurdities and fears you seem to notice when your time is spent doing nothing at all as you wait for the world to open up again.”

…then watch this lil video featuring Otis Infrastructure talking about perfect pop songs!