Setting the tone with drum sticks tapping together fused with enigmatic bass, Odelet opens her latest release, The Angels Album with the track Angels featuring elegant vocals, a cinematic and immersive vibe and the lyrics singing “You came to me like an angel, an angel…”
The Detroit-born artist, who is based in the Bay Area, delivers a luscious soundscape with a soaring, broad range of vocals and live drums which have us hypnotized. We love variation in synth frequencies that dimensionalize the record, on the second track, Too Sure, we are met with a soft organ sound whilst our protagonist sings emotionally and introspectively.
The third track on the record, is Wait for You which opens with vocal details from Odelet before she sings, “Know that I’ll wait for you, wait if you want me too…” as she professes amplified love energy on the record.
Odelet is the product of a split home with her father in Detroit, obsessed with all things Motown, funk, and soul, singing in church choirs and barbershop quartets, and her stepfather in California who was a lover of old-world country music and worked as a lyricist.
This fusion really comes through in her art, as she sings passionately about the human condition.
Hex is the fourth track on the record, which takes us on a moodier journey, still staying true to the soundscape of the album but with higher vocal delivery and darker lyricism from Odete as she asserts her power.
Next up is More (Everlasting Tape Cut), which actually opens the film that has been released to support this project. Everlasting Tape is created with film-maker Haley Keegan and features collages of various eras of film fused with the compositions of Odelet. More features nuns fighting a demon, we also witness surrealist painting as the backdrop for Odelet’s soundscape, footage of vintage Mickey Mouse, flowers, trips around the world, the ballet and more archive footage from history.
We love Man Oh Man, and the sensual and atmospheric frequency that Odelet gives us on the track. Discovered at an early age by a vocal instructor of classical and opera, Odelet was told that she was a jazz singer, a rare thing, and was offered a mentorship pro bono in order to teach her how to care for her instrument, which explains a lot of the charisma, timelessness and depth of the rising artist’s vocal.
Seventh on the record is Les Tendances, bear in mind Everlasting Tape opened with a French voice over, nous aimons un projet multilingue! Odelet has us completely mesmerized as she takes us on a journey of heartbreak in French, singing about the “vestige de mon coeur”, which translates as the “remnants of her heart” and how she slept all day.
What’s It Gonna Be is up next and opens with brighter keys and a lighter energy but with a deep vocal from the artist as she asks for answers. The ninth track is Victory and opens with light percussion and bass as Odelet sings with wisdom that “life is a victory, not a cross to bear”. The drums are pulsating on this track. Fires I Lit is an introspective track where Odelet asserts herself, as she comes into her power and self-awareness on the record.
The Angels Album is a return to Odelet’s first loves, Soul and R&B, and is a project where she has complete creative control. Nearly all of the instrumentation is played by Odelet herself, and she chose the remote and isolated area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and in the small town of Valentine, Texas, just outside of Marfa to record vocals.
All About is the tenth track on the album and we love the piano solo and mood the instrument brings to life before the final track of the record, Only Direct Me which feels like a track that can relate to Odelet‘s connection with the universe, the muse of the album and her experimental film career.
To date, her film Everlasting Tape has been selected for screening in over 40 film festivals internationally and won 16 awards, including four for Best Original Song or Score, and can be viewed here. We have added More (Everlasting Tape Cut) to our New Music Spotlight playlist!