The national ignominy, the fascist policies and the loud, proud-for-the-wrong-reasons dumbfuckery. These are barrel-bottom times in America in general and in Florida in particular. At best, it’s embarrassing. At worst, it’s willful oppression. For those who live here and have worked to put a lot into our communities, it’s an uncomfortable epiphany.
All it takes is a soul and a reasonable moral compass to sense it. If you want to know how actually threatening it really is, just ask someone nonbinary. That’s the sentiment behind the recent single by Paper Aviator, the solo vehicle for Orlando’s Kris Zaballero (they/them). “I Don’t Want to Leave” is an instrumental, but the title nutshells it.
“‘I Don’t Want to Leave’ is about the conflict I feel with my home state of Florida,” says Zaballero. “I’ve found an incredible community, I have so many friends here, I love the nature, the yummy food … but so many factors threaten my ability to exist here: our really horrible government, threats to LGBTQ+ rights, rampant development and destruction of the ecosystem, weather that seems to get worse every year, etc. etc. It’s probably smart to move out, but I’m hesitant to abandon it all.”
It’s a shitty conundrum. And the searching music on “I Don’t Want to Leave” embodies that emotional limbo. But as a digital fusion act, Paper Aviator doesn’t do traditional emo. Instead, that essence is translated to the digifu aesthetic. Rather than bummer guitars and sadboy wailing, this instrumental track is a pristine electronic soundscape of trilling keyboards, skittering glitches and VGM tones. The heart may be emo but the language is pure chiptune.
If that particular combination sounds hyper-specific, there’s an equally hyper-specific reason for that. “I Don’t Want to Leave” was Zaballero’s entry for Battle of the Bits, an online chiptune music competition. It competed in the “chipwest emo” battle, a category for chiptune interpretations of Midwest emo. Niche enough for you? At any rate, the song not only met those exacting parameters but also placed third.
As narrow as the sonic inspiration is for “I Don’t Want to Leave,” its theme and emotions are very relatable, especially for those of us here in Orlando and other bubbles of sanity. It’s a lovely little song that’s a reminder of the light in our midst even in the middle of the storm. “I Don’t Want to Leave” and B-side “Just a Second” are both on Bandcamp and most other streaming platforms. Paper Aviator and friends will be performing this weekend at the annual Halo Halo Music Fest spotlighting young local Filipinx artists (4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, Lil Indie’s, $20).
This article appears in Oct. 8-14.
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