A tribute to a New York City angel.
The New York pop project Porches has shared a brand new single titled ‘Angel’, dedicated to a dear friend and former manager, Billy Jones.
Exactly one year ago, the owner of Brooklyn venue Baby’s All Right passed away at 45 from glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer.
Known as a pioneer of the NYC nightlife and indie scene, his death was felt by friends and collaborators alike.
Now, Aaron Maine of Porches has shared a tribute track marking the one-year anniversary of Jones’ passing, announcing the release on social media.
“Uploaded a song I wrote for Billy last July… lots of love to everyone missing him today. I feel like he’s with us all the time.”
The three-minute track was uploaded to Bandcamp alongside its lyrics and a photo of the Libra constellation (Billy Jones’ star sign) overlooking a dark and dreamy landscape.
Despite being tagged with the EBM genre and “dark muscle”, the track takes the form of a slow, intimate piano ballad that culminates in a final wave of spacey synths and multilayered vocals.
Aaron Maine comes to terms with the love he still carries for his friend, even after death, on the track’s chorus: “I guess now you’re an angel, but you always have been / and the only difference is that now you’re in heaven.”
This new track arrives just a month after Porches’ most recent mixtape, MASK, a collection of nine songs recorded on a four-track recorder in his apartment.
The project showed the New York native embracing a more stripped-back, DIY aesthetic while retaining his raw delivery and dark lyricism.
The mixtape’s lead single, ‘HABIT’, featured a music video made up of disjointed clips presented with dingy lighting and shaky camerawork.
Porches is expected to tour the latest project from June through August, taking on indie stages across New York, Illinois and Philadelphia.
Through Aaron Maine’s efforts, the legacy of Billy Jones can now live on sonically in the hearts of many New York indie fans.
