Indie singer-songwriter Orla Gartland recently shared a lively new unreleased single titled ‘NOW WHAT?’.
The song is a heartbreaking and emotive alt-pop single, which has quickly become a fan favourite with the Instagram video shared as a response to a comment where a fan said ‘orla i’m begging on my knees please release iiiittttt’. The snippet was shared by the artist in a recording of its live debut in Paris on the ‘EVERYBODY NEEDS A HERO’ with several openers including Emma Harner and Hohen Ford. The tour comes after the release of her latest album ‘Everybody needs a hero’ .
In classic Gartland style, she performed the track first for fans on social media singing emotively alongside the acoustic guitar playing that brought the singer to fame.
Gartland explains the creative process and concept behind her latest album in an interview with Billboard. The artist shares her musical desires, stating “I wanted the good, the bad and the very ugly.” in terms of writing songs surrounding love and relationships. The style is reminiscent of her self-made creative independence, but pushes past homemade ambitions and instead revels in a heavier alt-pop sound.
The artist has revealed the monetary difficulties touring the US as a small independent artist, especially post-pandemic, after the tour commenced in November 2024. However, this has not discouraged Gartland from live performance announcing several upcoming opportunities to catch her live. The artist announced her involvement in this year’s Glastonbury Festival last month, promising to give ‘everything we’ve got’.
Only the week before, she also announced that she would be performing in the Lollapalooza festival as well as her role supporting Glass Animals for their ‘TOUR OF EARTH’ this August.
The band have also spoken about their thoughts of touring after the pandemic in an interview with The Independent. Their album ‘Dreamland’ was released in 2020 during the lockdown, and tours for the release were postponed until 2021. They discuss the fear of ‘petrifying financial shortfalls’ if they were to need to end the tour abruptly.
With Gartland’s YouTube beginnings, live performance is understandably important to the artist. She has shared these performances on her YouTube channel in her series ‘tour diaries’.
With the latest album still recent in its release, it will be exciting to see fresh music from the artist.
