Gordi has confirmed her third album ‘Like Plasticine’ with new single ‘Peripheral Lover’

Gordi has announced details of her third album ‘Like Plasticine’, alongside sharing new single ‘Peripheral Lover’.

The Australian indie-pop artist – aka Sophie Payten – will release the twelve-track record via Mushroom Music on 30th May, which includes previous singles ‘Alien Cowboy’ and ‘Lunch At Dune’ featuring SOAK.

“Summer in Nashville a few years ago, it was damn hot,” Payten says of the new single. “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. 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.”

The accompanying video was directed by Jared Frieder, with Payten explaining: “A couple years ago, Troye Sivan texted me asking if I would help him write a song for a movie. We wrote ‘Wait’ for the film ‘Three Months’, which was written and directed by the talented Jared Frieder, and he popped into my head when I was wondering how to bring ‘Peripheral Lover’ to life with visuals. We flew to Dallas and shot on a 45-degree (celsius) day, as I dragged a kissing booth around the city. 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).”

Speaking about the album, Payten reflects: “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. But sometimes, heart-wrenching change can be a thing of beauty. It was about making the music as undaunted as the stories within it.”