ODETTE RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘TRIAL BY FIRE’
Australian singer/songwriter, Odette kicked off her national tour in Hobart this week and today releases ‘Trial By Fire’ – the fifth single to be lifted from her critically acclaimed album ‘Herald’. Produced by Damian Taylor, ‘Trial By Fire’ is the follow up to previous singles ‘Herald’ ‘Amends’ ‘Dwell’ and ‘Feverbreak’ with Hermitude. Says Odette of the song:
“Trial By Fire is a song I wrote to spark a sense of clarity and power in myself. The layers of natural instruments ebb and flow between light and polite to dark and heavy synths. This song is about the struggle to remain strong and not give in to fear in the thick of situational instability.”
A triumphant follow up to her highly acclaimed debut record, 2018’s To A Stranger, the songs on her album Herald leave no subjective stone unturned. Love, heartbreak, grief, anger, self-analysis, accountability—you name it, it’s on here. “This album is sort of a nuanced discussion of the positives and the negatives of mental illness and also just being a human being. It talks about the realities of hurting others, the consequences of that, and even more so, it holds me accountable—it holds me to my word”, she says.
There’s an undeniable youthfulness to this record, not in a naïve sense, but in the urgency and fervent fury of its delivery. Odette’s unique brand of experimental pop reaches new heights here—theatrical, expansive, and at times so dramatic and surreal it borders on satirical. “I used to view this record as quite a dramatic statement and now I listen back and it’s almost satirical how dramatic some of these songs are because I don’t view life at all like I used to.”
“I wrote this album because I wanted to document my experience” it in a she clarifies. “I originally called it ‘Dwell’ because it was all about ruminating, which is a big thing for me. But I didn’t want Dwell to be the main take-away. I wanted it to very much be about reflecting, self-analysis and then growth. The most important part, for me, is the growth.”
And so she arrived at Herald, taken from the string soaked, theatrically throbbing opening track of the album.
Working once again with famed producer Damian Taylor (Björk, Arcade Fire, The Killers), Odette says Taylor gave her the confidence to experiment further with her sound this time around. “He was like, Georgia, I just want you to let go and deep dive into your world and make something from it”, she says. “So I feel like I was a lot bolder with instrumentation and with experimental sounds.”
The bold and visually striking album artwork is an oil on canvas portrait by accomplished Melbourne-based artist Eben Edjne. “Eben has been my friend for a long time,” Odette tells. “We met as teenagers obsessed with art and emotion. I’ve been following his work over the years and knew that I needed to bring him on for this project. His portrait series is a beautiful and accurate portrayal of my flesh embodying the waiting place to who I am becoming.”
Odette burst on to the scene in 2017 with ‘Watch Me Read You’, an epic ballad about the complexities of processing trauma, the single landing at No. 56 on triple J’s Hottest 100 and achieving Gold ARIA accreditation.
Follow up singles ‘Collide’, ‘Take It To The Heart’ and ‘Lights Out’ all reached Gold status whilst debut album ‘To A Stranger’ debuted at No. 13 on the ARIA Album Chart and earned Odette two ARIA Awards nominations in 2018 including Breakthrough Artist. With over 55 million streams, two sold out national headline tours, Falls Festival, SXSW, and headline Europe & UK tour under her belt, Odette is looking forward to the release of her transcendental new record and 2021 being her biggest year yet.