Following the release earlier this year of her critically acclaimed debut EP ‘after it all blew over’, the British-Finnish artist otta returns today with the insistent and scattergun highs of ‘never see’, a song that she attributes to “not being able to see the good that’s around you and within you”
She also announces her second EP, the 8 song ‘Songbook’, will be released on July 10th, a further collaboration between kwes’ BOKKLE imprint and [PIAS].
otta released her debut single at the end of 2019 to significant support from the likes of The Line Of Best Fit (as their Song Of The Day), The Guardian, DAZED, CLASH, Dummy and more.
The FADER premiered the patchwork, skewed video to ‘small hours’ saying that it “captures a sense of serenity and space perfectly. The interior scenes, shot in a London flat, meanwhile, offer a more manic and claustrophobic take on the song’s dueling themes.”
Her new EP follows the same playful approach to genre as the debut, but this time expanding the musical palette even further, and exploring the meaning behind what a songbook represents to people. She delves further into that here:
‘I’ve had the idea for songbook for some time, I knew what it was going to look and sound like from early on.
I think the word ‘songbook’ has this nostalgic feel to it. When I was younger, we had this series of songbooks in my house that my mum played piano from.
A ‘songbook’ is also this quite clean thing. I wanted to make my own one, but with the reality of what that would sound like for me. I knew from the way my music had been sounding that the completed songs would feel the opposite to the feeling I got from the word.
I kept the title and idea in my mind and made whatever came naturally. For me there’s an element of that clean feeling in some elements of these songs but mainly I felt myself just focusing on what was going on around the lyrics.
I found it fun to visualize characters in each and make alternative narratives that definitely influenced my production and visual choices.’
otta
songbook
Out July 10th via BOKKLE / [PIAS]
1. never see
2. three of us
3. i’ll always be the man
4. hope extension
5. suihku
6. sick inside
7. no more tears
8. just like the rainFind otta online:
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