INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
ODETTE HAS NEVER BEEN SHY ABOUT SAYING THE HARD THING OUT LOUD - The Sydney-based singer-songwriter (Georgia Sallybanks to her family) built her name on piano-led confessionals that move between tenderness and bite, earning four ARIA nominations, a stint at the Sydney Opera House, and a reputation for turning private reckonings into something communal. Her third album, Blink, out now, is the most unguarded work of her career, and her first as an independent artist after parting ways with her major label.
Made over four years with producer Kiah Gossner, Blink began during a particularly volatile stretch of her life and became a way to transmute overwhelm into something beautiful. The fourteen tracks pair classic songwriting with textures of decay: guitars surge and melt into nothing, starlike sounds twinkle and fade, and everything keeps building toward something. She calls it her “big cosmopolitan confessional,” a patchwork of disasters and epiphanies, and a record she describes as “a big fuck you to nihilism and a love letter to enduring hope.”
Odette sat down with us to talk about finding the right collaborator, what full creative control actually feels like, and how she holds onto hope while writing about the darkest parts of herself. Read on to hear how Blink came together.
LUNA: Blink was made during a particularly volatile period in your life. When did you know you were ready to turn what you were going through into an album rather than just surviving it?
ODETTE: When I met Kiah. I had been writing by myself for months and didn't have any avenues to record it properly as I needed to and he facilitated it, and then more. It had definitely been churning in my blood for a good while.
LUNA: You describe the record as your "big cosmopolitan confessional." What does it feel like to have something so personal now exist in the world for other people to hold onto?
ODETTE: A bit frightening but mostly freeing. It feels good to be honest about everything because I can't change the things I'd have liked to but I can try to make something beautiful out of what I learnt and pass that forwards.
LUNA: You made Blink independently after parting ways with your major label. How did that change the way you worked, and what did having full creative control actually feel like in practice?
ODETTE: It was like being totally unleashed. I found the empowerment of having full transparency over the business element of my career unexpectedly inspiring, which surged my creative practice and filled me with new, powerful energy. It's been wonderful albeit overwhelming at times but that's the nature of everything I guess.
LUNA: Your collaboration with Kiah Gossner sounds like it was central to the record coming together. Can you tell us more about your creative process together?
ODETTE: I won't go on too much because he knows how much he means to me but I will say that Kiah is as compassionate as he is creatively gifted. He's a wonderful sonic translator and a good friend. I love him very much and this album wouldn't be here like this without him.
LUNA: What's your favorite track on the album and why?
ODETTE: "Blink." I love the harmonies and I love the rhythm and how bright and momentous it feels. It feels good to sing the chorus, like I'm soaring and it feels like I'm solidifying and encouraging trying in all aspects of my own life and hopefully inspiring others to do the same. Life is hard enough as it is, this song inspires me when I'm feeling low.
LUNA: The album describes itself as "a big fuck you to nihilism and a love letter to enduring hope." How do you hold onto hope when you're in the middle of writing about the darkest parts of yourself?
ODETTE: I think that's where hope lives the most and in transparency I give my own hope a couple of strong legs. I've spent a lot of time in the socially unacceptable spheres these last years and I have learnt a lot from the friends I made in rehab and my inpatient hospital stays and in AA rooms too. People are really damaged, including myself, and I find it really inspiring to look into the eye of the problems and to meet it with as much compassion and understanding as I can muster. We're not going to get anywhere as a collective without this approach because what I've learnt is that addiction can happen to anyone. Mental illness can happen to anyone and trauma can happen to anyone and if you don't have the support and healthcare you need when you're suffering, bad stuff happens in lots of different ways and instead of a healing response we just have a system that perpetuates and actually worsens the pain. We've got a long way to go as a country in our support for vulnerable people and unfortunately to our politicians it's clearly not as important as pillaging the earth and claiming patches of land to build ugly buildings on. And I'm supposed to be the crazy one. I've learnt so much about what it is to be a human being these last years and I think that generally people are quite ignorant or numb towards our most sensitive people. Some of the kindest and most courageous people I've met are people who have been in very dark places. I'd like to be as courageous as the people I've met along the way and put something good into the world while I still can. Hope is an energy we can cultivate inside ourselves and I know it's true because I have slowly grown my own from nearly nothing, even in the face of humankind's crimes against the world and each other.
LUNA: What do you want someone who is in the middle of their own dark period to feel when they listen to this album all the way through?
ODETTE: I don't know if I can answer that. Everyone will have their own thoughts, maybe people will hate it and think I'm a preachy wanker. I'm not sure. I hope people can just be more honest with themselves about how they feel and what they believe is right and to look at their own behaviour and grow where they need to because we need everyone to step up now.
LUNA: What does the rest of this year look like for you going into 2027?
ODETTE: I am touring! I am going to perform around the country and I can't wait! Hopefully I'll be headed to the UK/Europe next year and maybe even the US who knows! Aside from that I'm working on my production skills so there might be something fun in the future there too. I'm really just looking to make and release all the music that's living in me until I can't anymore. I'm very excited and nervous for the future!
