Orbit 17 – Betrayer
Today, Portland based Orbit 17 shares video for new song “Rainbows” and announces their new album Betrayer, due out on May 22, 2026.
Jamie says, “Rainbows” is a song about coming out. I was raised in a pretty rural part of Louisiana. Growing up, I knew I was trans from an early age, but I was also 100% sure that I would take that knowledge to my grave. The shame and self-loathing was really crippling and the idea that one could transition and still lead a happy and fulfilling life just didn’t seem possible.
It took a lot of time and, frankly, exposure to others for me to come to terms with who I was, and to understand that I wasn’t broken is some fundamental way.
I ended up transitioning in the early 2000’s, shortly after leaving Louisiana for California. Much to my surprise I was really embraced by my family back home at the time. I was truly prepared to be disowned.
That being said, it’s been really difficult watching the political climate on transgender issues in the US shift in the other direction since then. This all feels like ancient history to me. I would have said that being trans is the least interesting thing about me. Yet all of sudden it seems everyone has got an opinion on my existence.
Luckily I’m much more self-possessed now than I was back then.”
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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