New Music: Little Oso – Simulation Games

Little Oso get homesick for a place they’ve never been on the offbeat and oddly soothing, then unsettling, Simulation Games.

The title track of their sophomore album, Simulation Games also sees the band expand to a quintet, with Daniel Juergens on synthesisers and samplers, now joining guitarist Ricky Lorenzo, vocalist/guitarist Jeannette Berman, drummer DJ Nelson, and bassist Dana Guth.

I didn’t realise that it clocked in four minutes, often down to how it begins like a lullaby, oh so quiet and sometimes disquieting. The latter is more to the fore as Berman’s vocals grow from a still, reflecting pool of stillness to something akin to a raging body of water, losing form and full of power before suddenly subsiding; not calmed, but quietened.

Simulation Games was inspired by the Berman’s on-and-off nannying gigs around southern Maine and her bouts of obsessions with playing the Sims, so maybe that’s why I picked up a feeling that the song embodies that sense of losing yourself in the lives of others, whether they are real or a collection of pixels. The song itself is imbued with a similar quality; the washes of synths and yearning vocal harmonies feeling familiar, even when the track hits its emotionally and sonically loudest points, full of nostalgia and longing.

Be sure to watch the video, which the band worked on with 3D animator Haven, and adds a visual dimension to the dominant themes within the track.

Simulation Games is out now as a joint release by Repeating Cloud and Safe Suburban Home to stream on Spotify and download on Bandcamp. The album of the same name is due for release in summer 2027; head to the Portland, Maine outfit’s Instagram account for news on that and upcoming live dates.

Header photo by flsiv_photo