An Orange Colored Day - Arima Ederra
Image of Arima Ederra, sourced from https://arimaederra.bandcamp.com/album/an-orange-colored-day
An Orange Colored Day is the canvas on which Atlanta-born, Los Angeles-based artist Arima Ederra paints a picture of love, longing, loss, and the complexities of familial relationships. The album can be considered Ederra’s debut album, 10 years after her earlier release Earth to Arima, which she has seemingly taken off of streaming channels. It is quite likely that she wanted to reintroduce herself into the music world with a more ‘complete’ sound at this point of her career.
An Orange Colored Day steadily opens with “Letters from the Imaginary”, a track that encompasses the longing and blissful imagined world that washes through the album’s entirety. Ederra’s vocals fuse wonderfully with the gentle strings and drums to create a nostalgic dream of finally finding that long-lost lover, friend, or family and living in the euphoric aftermath. In “Free Again”, she continues to fan the embers of nostalgia as she stretches an invitation to an old friend to bathe in the freedom that underscored their childhood. Here, Ederra portrays her understanding of love in friendship, characterized by acts of service centered on finding freedom from fear — illuminated in her narration of childhood experiences of climbing trees to pick fruit and conquering the irrational fear of monsters under one’s bed.
The album quickly transitions into a picture of hope and resilience in “Steel Wing”, a track with an upbeat drum sound which then beautifully switches to a reggae rhythm. The song is seemingly an ode to her father (a constant figure in the album and by extension the artist’s life) amidst his status as a refugee and coalesces with her own journey to adulthood and self-discovery. “Steel Wing” is not just a song of determination and strength against the harsh realities of the world but also the adoption of personhood through the experiences of our parents, and in this case, the safeguarding of Ederra’s freedom vis-a-vis the “crooked man’s stealing of all their gold.”
“I am a bird with a steel wing soaring.”
Ederra’s dreamy and ethereal vocals shine throughout her album with every lyric being beautifully delivered with conviction. It is hard to deny the beauty in her voice but something incredibly special occurs in “Portals”, which is quite possibly the best song. Coming right after the interlude-like “Loverman” where she repeatedly recites the lyrics “Loverman where you go now”, “Portals” weaves the tale as old as time of falling in love with a friend and the confusion and longing that accompanies the experience when the love is unrequited. The vocals reverberate against the harmonies of a softly plucked electric guitar creating the kind of song you listen to while slowly descending a wall you’re leaning against. It has you wishing for an experience of unrequited love just to fully experience the emotions infused in the song.
An Orange Colored Day album cover. Image sourced from https://arimaederra.bandcamp.com/album/an-orange-colored-day
The expertly created world of nostalgia, longing, love and loss in An Orange Colored Day is nothing groundbreaking in the alternative RnB/’Jazzy Soul’ world. That said, it carries with it an irresistible charm that has you going back to it over and over. It also helps that the entire album is just about half an hour, making it easier to listen to it whole. Listening to this album is akin to viewing the world through rose-colored glasses (despite the touches of melancholy) as you take a fantasy trip crafted by Ederra’s beautiful voice and dream-like instrumentals. A pleasant album, a hopeful debut; one can only look forward to hearing more from the Atlanta-born Ethiopian in the future.