Orbit 17 – Tunnels
Today, Portland based Orbit 17 shares video for new song “Tunnels” off their upcoming new album Betrayer, due out on May 22, 2026.
On the track Jamie says, Orbit 17 doesn’t have many love songs, but this is one of them. Though it’s more of a un-requited love song.
It’s about a guy I knew in college, pre-transition. He was an exchange student and he was obsessed with these alleged tunnels under campus at LSU. He was one of the first friends I made freshman year and one of the people most responsible for pulling me out of my shell and showing me there was a world outside.
I definitely had a bit of a crush on him, though he never knew. We lost touch after I transitioned, but I still think of him from time to time and wonder what he’s up to.
Orbit 17 is an experimental independent rock band based in Portland, Oregon. Known locally for their intimate arrangements and front-woman Jamie Brite’s expressive live guitar work, Orbit 17 explores the tension between the digital and the analog, forcing the two into an uneasy harmony. Raw guitar lines often collide with sweeping synthesizers, creating a soundscapes that feel otherworldly yet unmistakably human.
Lyrically Orbit 17 touches on themes of alienation, identity, hope and nostalgia. The songs are often centered around Jamie’s experiences growing up transgender in southern Louisiana as well as the anxieties of living through the current climate of cultural and political tension. They are a diary documenting what it feels like to exist, create, and search for belonging during such a time.
Originally founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2022 by Jamie Brite and Misha Guiffre, the project expanded with the addition of drummer Dagan Reid Thogerson in 2026 and vocalist/synthesist Mary Herigstad-Franz in 2024.
After playing extensively throughout the Bay Area and releasing a self-recorded EP, the band has since relocated to Portland, where they are re-imagining their sound ahead of the release of their first studio album, Betrayer.
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