Warren Hildebrand records music and runs Orchid Tapes, a cassette-based record label run from his Toronto apartment. The label is a place for friends and other like-minded artists to collaborate and share their music.

Now, under the name Foxes in Fiction, Hildebrand has released Swung From The Branches, a mixtape-album. “Most of these songs are tracks that arose from restlessness, breaks between classes, insomnia and 5 AM isolation while in my in apartment in Toronto,” writes Hildebrand on his blog.

Splitting the mixtape-album in true cassette-like fashion, Side A of Swung From The Branches features instrumental songs that rouse nostalgia, while Side B builds on the first side’s dreamlike flow with distorted vocals. Each track is a life’s reflection. Hildebrand even has a track-by-track commentary for each song on his MySpace Blog.

The first song, “Operating Room”, was inspired by Hildebrand’s experiences in hospitals. Consisting of five, maybe six, layers of repeating sounds built around one reminiscent of a heart monitor, the song evoked my own time at a hospital as a child. Feeling lonely and completely isolated from the world, I recall how visits from my grandparents made me feel so happy.

The other songs from Side A like “Basement Window”, “Sleeping Building Unsuspecting” and “Ninth Floor View” call to mind Brian Eno and his ambient collection. There is also “Coffee Cups That Won’t Break Down”, a song with a narcoleptic and vibrating counting sheep-like tone that resembles “Is and of The” by K.C. Accidental.

Side B contains more songs that look back on Hildebrand’s past, as well as his coming to terms with growing up. Songs like “Bronte Balloons” and “Jimi Bleachball” are about youthful idleness, which he explains in his track commentaries. “Kids riding two lives, swung from branches,” Hildebrand sings in “Jimi Beachball”, and it’s a line he uses as his mixtape-album’s title.

The second half of the mixtape-album has Fiction in Foxes calling to mind Atlas Sound, a solo project by Deerhunter front-man Bradford Cox, who is also known to have collected many mixtapes during his childhood. Like Atlas Sound, Foxes in Fiction uses repetitions of lyrics that sound unrehearsed and poetic.

Hildebrand wrote the lyrics for “15 Ativan (Song for Erika)” on stage after hearing of a friend’s overdose. The song’s chords rise and fall spiralling like a sung elegy.

Borrowing the guitar recording from the first song, Hildebrand circles back to the beginning with “Visiting Hours”. We return to the echoes that mirror a heart monitor, this time sounding more distant. Fiction in Foxes’ Swung From The Branches is like a story we ask to be told again and again. You can visit the Foxes in Fiction website to download the entire mixtape-album.

[audio:http://werenotbroken.com/wp-content/uploads/mp3s/FoxesInFiction_15_Ativan_Song_for_Erika.mp3|titles=15 Ativan (Song for Erika)|artists=Foxes in Fiction]
Foxes in Fiction – 15 Ativan (Song for Erika)