If you look hard enough, you can find traces of Jesse Barki’s music almost anywhere on the internet. Spread across Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Bandcamp, the 28-year-old’s discography is less of a solid list than it is a paper trail of various albums and their accompanying monikers. Perhaps his most well-known act, The Mellowells slowly infiltrated the Pennsylvania indie scene throughout 2016 — solidifying them as a favorite amongst locals for Barki’s smooth leading vocals and the band’s jangly garage rock sound. After they entered hiatus indefinitely, he moved on to a series of solo releases before refocusing on the Lancaster-formed trio Sun Not Yellow. Now, more than a year after the latter’s 2020 tour was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, Champagne Atlantis was born from Barki’s home studio in upstate New York; a singular effort centered on “experimenting with drum machines and samplers and heartfelt songs and exotic sonic qualities [sic.]” And while a non-linear flow of releases may not work for every artist, the Marlboro native utilizes the uncertainty to mirror the twists and turns of early adulthood, a central feeling of his musical identity.

However, the one-man band’s newest release centers its focus on the opposite of its previous standards. The past decade has seen multiple tours, EPs, and albums for Barki, but while he’s no stranger to the East Coast music world, the singer’s sizable experience has yet to incite a self-imposed status quo on his creative process. Instead, he’s taking what he knows about making music and using it to push every boundary he can find.

Strengthened by the prolific musicality of his twenties, including education in audio engineering from Lebanon Valley College, “Ole Reliable” is what the title suggests: an ode to the dependable. A clean break from the crunchy acoustics of his previous solo work, and created in part with notably dated machinery (including the Korg Electribe 2 model that first introduced him to the world of production), it functions as an effort to embrace the musical unknown from within the quarantine-inflicted confines of the all-too-familiar. He offered followers an effusive glimpse into the song’s unlikely construction via Instagram (@champagneatlantis), admitting that it was “not something I thought I would have ever created by myself.”

With a sound reflective of the conditions it was created in, the single is both relaxed in the wisdom of its guiding philosophy (spoken word reinforces the principle melody for the first minute, with Barki’s interjections evincing his ethos quite plainly: “Never say that you’re gonna be/when you know you ain’t ever gonna be!”) and energizing in its instrumental support. Picking up speed around the ten-second mark, Ole Reliable starts off with the kind of modern-psychedelic sound that fans of The Mellowells may recognize. But as it progresses, audiences will notice the ways in which Barki merges the past and present, most notably in his mixing of electronic progressions into a distinctive guitar lead. If the intentions behind its production are a nod to the work that predates it, the message has been received: true to its name, the song is a blend of attested methodologies with exciting new ideas, creating something fresh but familiar that ushers in new expressions of the self.

As the conclusion of Champagne Atlantis’ newest release settles in, and the humming, electronic melody fades into a satisfying buzz, it seems to pose the sort of question that Barki often asks himself when seated in the familiarity of his basement studio: what’s next?