London-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Bishop has been sitting with “MORTLAKE” since 2021, recording it across three different houses as it moved with him through life. The song started from a programming error on a Korg Minilogue – a sequence that came out wrong but generated a mood he wanted to keep, which became the haunting middle section. From there, Bishop worked backwards to build the verse and chorus around it. The track runs at 120 BPM, a deliberate choice that mirrors racing and anxious thoughts, and it moves through three phases: panic, reflection, and recovery, closing with an ambient, drumless outro. It’s Tiger Adopt‘s first release since 2024, and Bishop estimates he’s listened to it in various production stages somewhere around ten thousand times, leaning on it to get through the heavy moments while finishing it. It arrives on May 27th.
Weaving through an anxious person’s mind, trying to cope with intense thoughts, is what this song sounds like – and I know what that sounds like because this is how it sounds in my head when I’m trying to process thoughts that keep replaying. The sound design reflects that brilliantly. There is no single sound that surprised me or that I haven’t heard before, but the combination is so musical that it creates a genuinely mesmerizing atmosphere, especially when halfway through, there are space rock guitar lines merging seamlessly with the electronic cloud of sound.
The three-phase emotional structure – panic, reflection, recovery – gives the song a shape that you feel before you consciously register it, which is the mark of a well-constructed piece. The influences are honest ones: Neil Young in the guitar work, Pet Shop Boys and Kate Bush in the synths, Beach House in the haze. Bishop absorbed them and made something that sits in that tradition without simply replicating it. Worth revisiting when it drops at the end of May.
