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The profile · researched 30 October 2026
Orca: the San Antonio two-piece who spent 2026 in other acts' support slots
Mylena Velasquez and Daniel Galloway began as an after-school demo project in San Antonio and have spent most of 2026 on the road behind bigger names. A headline date at The Rock Box on 21 November is the first test of whether the audience follows them.
An after-school project that kept going
Orca are a duo from San Antonio, Texas: Mylena Velasquez on lead vocals and guitar, Daniel Galloway on drums, production and a second vocal line. The pairing happened sideways. Galloway was at college with Velasquez's brother and the two of them had a band together; when the brother mentioned he had a sister, she came by to put backing vocals on something and stayed. She was still at school at the time, and the pair have described the early sessions as an after-school activity rather than a career move — demos first, shows later.
The name came out of the same casual arrangement. Galloway has credited Velasquez's brother with it, produced under pressure because a gig was a week away and the bill needed something to print. For a day or two before that they were called Space Cowboys, which did not survive.
What survived instead was a working method the duo still use: Galloway builds and produces the arrangements, Velasquez carries the melody, and the two voices meet in harmony rather than one simply backing the other. It is a small-scale setup, and the records sound like it — reverb-heavy guitar, unhurried drums, analogue texture rather than gloss. Their earliest widely heard song, "Certain Feelings", was written while Velasquez was still in high school, which gives some sense of how little distance there is between the bedroom demos and the material now being played in clubs across North America.
Sirens, Ladybird, Soren
The released catalogue starts in 2024. Their Bandcamp dates Sirens to July 2024 and Ladybird to May 2025, and it is the latter — issued on 2 May 2025 — that venue billing treats as the debut EP, because it carried "Certain Feelings" and did the work of introducing them outside Texas.
The third EP, Soren, arrived on 8 April 2026 through Open Records and is the most considered thing they have made. Four tracks — "My Girl", the title song, "D&D" and "Heavy Heads" — run to roughly thirteen minutes, all written by Galloway and Velasquez. The duo have described it as a record about attachment and the angst of letting go of someone who mattered, written while they were apart and both going through versions of the same upheaval: college, moving, relationships ending. They worked on it remotely and the material is credited to the two of them as producers.
Since Soren the pattern has been singles rather than another EP. "skin&skin", released on 2 October 2026, was their fourth single of the year. It was produced by Hether — an act Orca have also supported live — and opens on ocean sound and strings before settling into the dream-pop shape the duo have been refining, with Velasquez singing against Galloway's beat. A review in Crave Music Magazine on 7 October 2026 read the lyric as the push and pull between wanting to be loved and fearing the attachment that comes with it, and noted that the band shot the accompanying video themselves.
Where they stand at the end of October 2026
Orca spent the autumn of 2026 as the opening act on Love Spells' Love Is The Law World Tour, a club run that took in Cambridge's The Sinclair on 24 September, the 7th St Entry in Minneapolis on 3 October and Barboza in Seattle on 11 October. It was their first sustained run at that scale, and it is the reason most of the recent writing about them exists at all — the coverage comes from regional music press and college radio reviewing the headliner and stopping to note the opener.
They had already built up support experience in smaller rooms, having opened for 54 Ultra and for Hether before this year. Galloway has described taking a support slot in front of someone else's audience as throwing treasure to strangers; Velasquez has been blunter about the nerves involved, pointing to the fear of judgement that comes with presenting the two of them to a room that did not buy a ticket for them.
The near future is partly announced and partly not. First Avenue's own billing for the Minneapolis date described Soren as a bridge to a longer project due at the end of 2026, and the duo's website currently has an EP called Shed up for pre-save alongside a vinyl pressing of Ladybird. Neither has a confirmed release date in public. What is confirmed is more touring: by the time the Love Spells run finished the duo had already lined up two more support stints and their own headline show.
What the support set is doing to rooms
Both of the reviews published during the autumn run describe the same thing. Writing about the Sinclair show on 29 September 2026, WTBU's reviewer credited Orca with setting the tone for the evening — reverb-heavy guitar lines, Velasquez's vocal over easy-going drums — and singled out the moment Galloway began singing while playing, with the two voices locking into harmony.
The Seattle review, published the day of the Barboza show on 11 October 2026, picked out the same trick and recorded the crowd's response to it. During "Natural", Galloway took the microphone from behind the kit and the room reacted audibly. The reviewer described Velasquez as drifting about the stage with a looseness that matched the material, called the vocal soft and wispy, and closed with an instruction not to arrive late for the opener.
Neither review times the set, and as a support act on someone else's tour the duo have not been playing anything close to a full one. That changes on 21 November, when they headline The Rock Box in San Antonio — their own stage, their own running order, in the city they come from.
The diary
The announced schedule is short and mostly supporting work. Orca play two nights at The Outset in Chicago on 30 and 31 October with Weston Estate, then two more with the same headliner at The Mod Club in Toronto on 4 and 5 November. The San Antonio headline date at The Rock Box follows on 21 November.
December brings a Texas run behind Temachii: White Oak Music Hall's upstairs room in Houston on 3 December, 29th Street Ballroom in Austin on 4 December, and Rubber Gloves in Denton on 11 December. The band's own site carries the standard caveat that dates and venues may change.
That is a tour diary built for a band still being discovered by other people's audiences — small rooms, two-night stands, a hometown headline wedged in the middle as a marker of where the following has actually reached. If the longer record lands when the venue billing suggests it will, the Texas dates in December will be the last run before the duo stop being an opening act.
The show, now
Through September and October 2026 Orca worked as the opening act on Love Spells' Love Is The Law World Tour, playing clubs such as The Sinclair in Cambridge (24 September), the 7th St Entry in Minneapolis (3 October) and Barboza in Seattle (11 October); as a support act the set is short and no published review gives its length. The staging is minimal because the band is two people — Mylena Velasquez out front on guitar and lead vocal, moving loosely around the stage, Daniel Galloway behind the kit. Reviewers have fixed on the same two features: the reverb-heavy guitar and soft vocal that set a dreamy tone for the night, and the point where Galloway sings while still drumming so the two voices harmonise, which drew an audible reaction from the Seattle crowd during "Natural". The Seattle writer's advice was explicitly not to skip the opener. Upcoming shows are two nights at The Outset in Chicago (30 and 31 October) and two at The Mod Club in Toronto (4 and 5 November) supporting Weston Estate, a headline date at The Rock Box in San Antonio on 21 November, and a December Texas run with Temachii in Houston, Austin and Denton. The Rock Box show is the only billed headline set, and so the only current chance to hear the duo play at full length.
Researched from soundofboston.com · orcatexas.bandcamp.com · orcamusic.xyz · orcamusic.xyz · playxear.com · sites.bu.edu · first-avenue.com · cravemusicmagazine.com
Pictures
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Robert Pittman · Public domain
Albino.orca · CC0
Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0
Photographer: Henk Caspers/Naturalis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Albino.orca · CC0
Albino.orca · CC0
Minette Layne from Seattle, Washington, USA · CC BY 2.0
Albino.orca · CC0
