Written by Sophie Wyatt
Australian Indie-pop singer Gordi is back once again with another eagerly awaited album for fans; Like Plasticine. With a plethora of musical projects behind her, including collaborations with the likes of Troye Sivan, Bon Iver and Phoebe Bridgers to name a few, she has tackled several vulnerable topics such as sexuality, self-discovery and identity through her music. Her distinctive sound has gained her an ever growing fan base, who have been on the edge of their seats this year as she’s teased her latest project with a few single drops and live shows.
Having grown up with her mum playing piano, and playing songs such as Tapestry by Carole King on vinyl, Gordi explained that music stemmed from a young age. It was on her 12th birthday that her passion for music grew, when her parents bought her a guitar and a copy of ‘The Sound of White’ by Missy Higgins – “who is a very beloved Australia artist,” she explained. “Listening to that record felt like reading a diary and the personal and emotional nature of the songwriting inspired me to begin exploring chords and melodies, and eventually lyrics.”
Like Plasticine chronicles the last few transformative years of Gordi’s life. From coming out and having to adjust the vision of her future, to working as a doctor on the frontline during the pandemic, Gordi explores the beauty, heartbreak and finite nature of human experience across 12 new songs. “Music sort of became a career as I was finishing my degree. In my final year of medical school, I learnt how to certify death. When a patient in the hospital has passed away, it’s usually the job of the junior doctor to conduct a final examination to certify the end of that person’s life. I was struck by how someone appears after death, how their skin feels. It made me think about plasticine – this malleable, moldable substance.” She went on to say, “I wrote the words “like plasticine” in a note on my phone – this was back in 2018. I kept turning the phrase over for years and though it had a fairly macabre origin, I began to think of it as our resilience. How we spend our lives adapting and transforming, under the pressure of forces good and destructive, and then one day we finally set in place.”
In the run up to the album release, Gordi released Peripheral Lover earlier this year. The single taken from the upcoming album centres around the beginnings of queer relationships; “I’m talking real early,” she explained. “Like so early that at least one person is still in the closet. Accepting the available love instead of it orbiting around you. There comes a breaking point, a demand, a pleading for honesty – and the relationship either explodes into the open, or melts from the periphery away into nothing. From these thoughts, ‘Peripheral Lover’ was born. “It’s a simple song with a simple message, and so I wrote KISS (keep it simple, stupid) on a post-it note and stuck it on my desk in Melbourne, while I layered up guitars and synths and drums. Me at my most ‘pop’ – terrifying and ludicrously fun.”
Whilst the album has an all encompassing storyline which can be tracked through each song, no two are same by any means. Each is a cog in creating the final life form that is Like Plasticine. Gordi explained to us that she witnessed so much suffering during her time working on the front line in the pandemic that “There became this added responsibility for healthcare staff to be both the practitioner, and also the support system in a way that exceeded normality.” And it was with this that she found writing songs helped her through these struggles. “There were a few occasions where I really struggled with that, and I tried to write from that perspective on some parts of this record.” Which is where the powerful lyrics stem from throughout this album.
When asked how the album as a whole made her feel, Gordi said “emotional.” She added that this is what she wanted to evoke in listeners as well; “I want them to feel like this record creates a space for them where they can express whatever they feel, and let it out and be moved by it. It is the most extraordinary thing to hear a song that someone wrote about a specific experience they had, and to see yourself in it. It’s what I love most about music.”
As Gordi’s life has progressed, so has each of her songs. An emotionally vulnerable artist, she pours every emotion she feels into her music, which is why her fan base both love and relate to her. She told us that she believes that this project is the most free flowing work she has made to date. “I basically spent 2-3 weeks creating spines of songs,” she started. “Just moods and loops, and therefore the beds of each track are quite static and repetitive. So then in the next stage of production, I was very focused on having all elements feel played and varied and harmonic. I haven’t explored the intersection of static and free form elements in that way before, so while the songs feel full, I feel I created space within them, which felt like a development for me.”
Gordi’s album Like Plasticine will be available on the 8th August. In the meantime, head over to Spotify to check out her single Peripheral Lover from the project.
