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 tracksincluding four new songs, which they dipped into their archives to findthe 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. Its fitting that Staring At The Sun harkens back to Hotel Fictions roots, when the two started playing together in college, because the crux of the project is still and will always be their friendship. Were 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.

Tracklist:

1. Ghost of Me
2. Staring at the Sun
3. Sunrise
4. Still Frozen
5. Girl in My Head
6. Watching My Life Go By
7. Hollywood
8. Margot
9. Next Life
10. Why Do Good Things Have to End
11. Emmaline
12. Warning Song
13. Sunrise (Acoustic)
14. Still Frozen (Acoustic) feat. Hey Nothing

UPC: 752259459848
Label: Paid Vacation
Release Date: 2.27.26
Format: Vinyl