“We’re not alone, Ocotillo,” Julia Zivic sings on “Ocotillo,” addressing a desert plant that survives where almost nothing does.  Ghost Funk Orchestra wrote the song after a gruelling tour through the American Southwest left frontman Seth Applebaum worn down: reaching New Mexico eased the heat, and a walk around Silver City to clear his head became the song.

Zivic sings the lead over Applebaum’s drums, bass, guitars, keys and vibraphone and a six-piece horn section of two trumpets, trombone, flute and two saxophones, the ten-piece live band that grew out of what started as Applebaum’s solo home recording and still runs on psychedelic soul, jazz, funk and Latin rhythm. “Ocotillo” is the first original the Brooklyn band have released since their 2024 album A Trip to the Moon, out on 16 July through Colemine Records.

The song speaks straight to the ocotillo, and Zivic’s narrator leans on its steadiness while admitting her own is gone: “I could fall apart if I needed to,” she sings, and the plant stays standing where she cannot. She sings to a second figure as well, the “desert rose” rooted in the New Mexico heat and, in her own words, “standing tall” as she wavers. Her lines keep circling that distance: “my heart feels lone,” she admits, the desert growth around her holding steadier than she feels. The plants hold. She doesn’t, quite. So she sings “we’re not alone” to them, over and over, until she half believes it.

Stream “Ocotillo” HERE