Gordi announces third album 'Like Plasticine' will drop 30 May
Image: Bianca Edwards
Published: 20 February 2025
Australian indiepop singer-songwriter Gordi (real name Sophie Payten) today announces she will release her third album Like Plasticine on May 30, with new single ‘Peripheral Lover’ out now.
Written with fellow artist Alex Lahey alongside Geoff Duncan and Holley Maher, ‘Peripheral Lover’ is a gorgeous, uplifting pop track with an electro-synth foundation layered with Payten’s remarkable voice that is as emotive and moving whether it is deep and husky or jumping into higher notes.
The lyrics embody the sensation of wanting, needing to be a central part in the life of the one you love: ‘Don’t you make me your peripheral lover / No, I want to be there in the middle,’ she sings.
Written in Nashville several years ago, Payten reveals the song was inspired by the beginnings of queer relationships where there is still so much doubt and confusion.
“I was thinking about the beginnings of queer relationships - I’m talking real early, like so early that at least one person is still in the closet. Accepting the available love instead of it orbiting around you,” she says. “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 exploded into being in about 3 hours. The journey from the song’s writing to its finish was long, with many false starts. 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.”
Directed by Jared Frieder, the music video was shot in Dallas and features Payten with a kissing booth. “We flew to Dallas and shot on a 45-degree celsius day, as I dragged a kissing booth around the city,” she reveals. “We’d put a call out to any non-male queer people in Dallas who were up for coming to the shoot and making out with a total stranger - unsurprisingly, an abundance of people showed up, and all went for drinks together after, bursting my heart open.”
Image: Bianca Edwards
Published: 20 February 2025
‘Peripheral Lover’ will feature on Payten’s third studio album Like Plasticine which will be released on 30 May. It is her first album since 2020’s Our Two Skins - the same year the pandemic broke and saw Payten working as a doctor on the medical frontline. Comprising 12 songs, the album will explore the transformative years since Our Two Skins including her coming out, adjusting the vision of her future, the pandemic as well as the beauty, heartbreak and finite nature of human experience.
“Being surrounded by death made me think about how beautiful life is…. 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,” she says. “But sometimes, heart-wrenching change can be a thing of beauty. On the first page of my notebook - where all the songs from this record are written - I wrote in the top corner ‘inject emotion into everything’. It was about making the music as undaunted as the stories within it.”
First releasing music in 2016, Payten has garnered streams in the tens of millions and global acclaim including support from BBC Radio 1 and Sirius XM. One of Australia’s most engaging and mesmerising artists, her music always manages to make a deep emotional connection with you through both her magical soundscapes and her unique and captivating voice that lends both a gravitas and searing honesty to her songs. Like Plasticine is set to be a high point in Payten’s career to date and is sure to be a mid year musical highlight.
‘Peripheral Lover’ is out now via Mushroom Music. You can buy and stream here.
Like Plasticine will be released in 30 May by Mushroom Music. You can preorder and presave now.
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