Gordi – “Unready”

Jess Gleeson

Gordi – “Unready”

Jess Gleeson

Back in April, Sophie Payten announced her sophomore album as Gordi, Our Two Skins. We’ve heard a few songs from it so far, including “Sandwiches,” “Aeroplane Bathroom,” and “Volcanic.” And today, she’s back with another new one.

The latest preview of Our Two Skins arrives in the form of “Unready.” The song dates back to 2017, when Gordi recorded a rough voice memo version while playing a harmonium in Reykjavik. Here’s what she had to say about the track:

For me it sits quite separately to the rest of the record — it’s the only song whose lyrics predate the period of my life described by the rest of the songs on Our Two Skins. When it came time to record the song we tracked every guitar we could find for the big strum sound in the chorus. Singing it proved a challenge because it sits a little higher than my comfortable register. We had tried to do the vocal takes in the cottage but it wasn’t working so one night we ventured over to my parent’s house for a change of scene. Chris [Messina] asked me (as a joke) if we had any strobe lights in the house to set the mood. We always joke that you could request any object from my Mum and she’d have it to you in minutes from some treasure trove of stuff in the house. Surely enough, we found a strobe light in the wardrobe of my brother’s childhood bedroom. We turned the lights off and hit the strobe, setting the perfect conditions to finally execute the vocal take for “Unready.”

“Unready” also comes with a video directed by Madeleine Purdy. Apparently driven by the prompt of creating a video during the pandemic, she and Gordi came up with the theme of “vignettes of despair.” It also features a cameo from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Alex Borstein. Check it out below.

Our Two Skins is out 6/26 via Jagjaguwar. Pre-order it here.

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