WHEN Odetta Hartman was astudent, she wrote her thesis on Alan Lomax’s 1935 expedition to record traditional songs in Florida and Georgia. Her own music, including new album Swansongs, can sometimes feel like such ajourney, a slip in time that combines folk and found sounds with contemporary beats. “Music is itself asacred technology, spanning generations, cultures and dimensions,” she says. “Thus, the cosmology of sound will always be passed down in the folk vernacular, even as it evolves. Blossoming from that place of authenticity, I feel emboldened to explore sonic textures ranging from orchestras to futuristic frequencies, with the hope of discovering the overlapping magic in the middle.”
Hartman began writing Swansongs while touring 2018’s Old Rockhounds Never Die, and the pandemic allowed her to work more deeply with bandmates Alex Friedman and Wyatt Bertz. “I love embedding sonic souvenirs from my travels,” she says. “On 222 and Old Rockhounds…, every sound and sample was generated by yours truly. Swansongs relaxed those rules to incorporate lessons learned from live shows. This enabled us to widen our sonic palette while building off the original ethos.”
PETER WATTS