As of yesterday (Tuesday 27th of April) Grammy-nominated electronic two-piece ODESZA have released a new track “Behind the Sun, taken from their recently announced forthcoming full-length studio album The Last Goodbye, which will be released on the 22nd July via Foreign Family Collective/Ninja Tune. Pre-orders can be found at this link HERE, and you can view the video for the mesmerising new track down below.
“Behind the Sun” is a powerful track, driven by pronounced percussive thunder cracks that are somewhat reminiscent of the drumline that ODESZA utilised on their “A Moment Apart” tour. The song also makes use of a rousing vocal sample from Iranian singer Simin Ghanem’s song “Seeb”.
Speaking of the song, according to a recent press release, ODESZA said:“While digging through old records we came across a song by the legendary Iranian singer, Simin Ghanem. It was such a beautifully haunting vocal that we couldn’t really get it out of our heads. Slowly we started to build these symphonic elements around her and piece by piece it started to become this big anthemic track. We wanted to incorporate pieces of live drumming in a new way and ended up running various snare drum elements through a resonator and modulating them to each hit. Overall we really love how this song came together, bringing the past into the present is something we find really exciting and inspiring.”
The release of the new tune follows some significant milestones for the Bellingham duo, which consists of Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight. including the recent announcement of their forthcoming ‘The Last Goodbye’ amphitheatre tour (which sold over 350k tickets during the initial 72-hour on-sale period, and has now nearly sold out completely), their recent sound design & curation of the HP Antarctic Dome at this year’s Coachella and their track “Love Letter (feat. The Knocks)” trending on TikTok.
“Love Letter (feat. The Knocks)” dropped earlier this year, along with album sister tracks “The Last Goodbye (feat. Bettye LaVette)” and “Better Now (feat. MARO)”. Billboard offered warm praise of“The Last Goodbye (feat. Bettye LaVette)”, calling it “a sleek, propulsive stunner” while the NY Times said it “brings some Slavic melancholy to four-on-the-floor dance music, samples the most heart-rending phrases of LaVette’s vocals and stretches out the anguish, proving again how classic the song remains”.
A recent press release said of Odesza’s highly anticipated new record: “The upcoming album is set to be the duo’s most ambitious album to date. A project rife with brightness and emotion, nostalgic yet rooted in the present, it serves as a sweeping sonic experience that speaks to themes of connection, reminiscence, and the impact we impart on one another.”
On the forthcoming “The Last Goodbye” tour, ODESZA will be performing a brand-new set and visuals on their biggest headlining tour to date. The duo will be embarking on an amphitheatre run featuring special guests Sylvan Esso, as well as additional support from the likes of San Holo, Elderbrook, Ben Böhmer and Foreign Family Collective acts: ford., Gilligan Moss, & NASAYA. Details on full dates and support notation can be found here.
