Australian indie-pop artist Gordi, aka Sophie Payten, has released a new single, “PVC Divide”, from her upcoming album Like Plasticine.
Written, recorded and produced by Payten, the emotional ballad features US singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell. The track was inspired by Payten’s time working as a doctor during the COVID pandemic.
“I spent the pandemic working as a doctor,” Payten explains. “These tiny planes at empty airports would take us to remote towns, to restaff hospitals that had been hit by covid. From the airport to a serviced apartment to the emergency room and so on and so forth. Rinse and repeat. I observed the grief of others until eventually it felt like my own.”
Payten says the lyrics were shaped by stories she heard, things she read, and emotions she tried to hold in. “They finally spilled over the day I wrote this… I started playing this guitar line and the words came quickly. It was all captured that day.”
“PVC Divide” looks at fragility and the push and pull between Payten’s two lives, as a doctor and as a musician. It follows her recent singles “Peripheral Lover” and “Alien Cowboy”, which will also appear on Like Plasticine, due for release on Friday, May 30th via Mushroom Music.
“Being surrounded by death made me think about how beautiful life is,” she says. “I thought about all the ways we are like plasticine in life – how forces we can’t control, contort us into shapes, stretch us thin, and test our resilience/ But sometimes, heart-wrenching change can be a thing of beauty.”
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
Gordi recently wrapped a UK tour and will join Foster the People on their European run. She’s also heading to the US for shows, including a set at SummerStage in Central Park.
She speaks more about the album in Rolling Stone AU/NZ’s June–August issue, which also features a review of Like Plasticine. The magazine hit newsstands on Monday, June 2nd.
Gordi’s “PVC Divide” is out now via Mushroom Music.
