Le Orchid

The quartet formed at the end of 2014, when frontwoman Lori Button and bassist Michael Carter met and started jamming. They added guitarist Malakai Fisher and drummer Jake Stofan to the equation, started playing open mics and local showcases at every venue in the area, and quickly earned a reputation for soaring indie pop that seamlessly marries acoustic elements like ukulele and upright bass with electronic ones like synthesizer, which adds up to a unique overall “sound design,” as Button calls it.

“Merging the electronic with the acoustic is something I’ve always thought was important,” Button tells Folio Weekly Magazine. “You don’t want to lose the authenticity of what you get when you sit down with a guitar or ukulele and a regular band. But there are also all these new toys and sounds that we’re lucky to experiment with in this day and age. In Le Orchid, we’re trying to use everything but have it make sense at the same time.”

Carter chalks up Le Orchid’s adventurous spirit — think Metric by way of The Beatles, Beach House, The Cults, and Vampire Weekend — to everyone’s divergent backgrounds. He and Fisher, who were both born and raised here in Jacksonville, have played together in Southern rock, folk, punk, and ska bands for a decade, while Fisher has toured the country and written two of his own albums. Stofan, another Bold City native, has jazz training but comes from a primarily punk background. And Button, who grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, pursued a solo career in Miami and then New York while remaining on the lookout for producers and DJs to work with. “We try to find common ground by putting our different interests together,” Carter says, “and creating something new from that.”