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Would you give your phone to a stranger and let them go through your voice memos or your notes app? Giving up your most private secrets to a completely random stranger is something that I doubt many people would do, I know I wouldn’t be that brave and there’s honestly only one person who comes to mind that I would give my phone to like that or tell all my deepest secrets, but for Odette, she’s never been shy about turning her most inner and private thoughts into something communal and freeing. 

On her third album, Blink, she does it with absolutely nothing left to the imagination between her and the listener. Blink is her first release since parting ways with her major label, and it’s sprawling, gritty, and a strangely tender record about love, heartbreak, and the terrible places you have to fight your way out of in order to find where you belong. 

Born in Bath, England, and raised in Sydney’s Inner West, Georgia Sallybanks, who performs as Odette, started writing at the piano in primary school (elementary school in the US if my US readers were confused) and broke through as a teenager via triple j’s Unearther. Since the single she released in 2017, “Watch Me Read You,” she has built a rare mix of critical and commercial momentum: her debut album To a Stranger (2018) introduced her blend of confessional, tell-all songwriting and rhythmic, intricate spoken-word lyricism, while Herald (2021), produced with Damian Taylor, pushed her toward a more electronic terrain. “Collide” and “Take It To The Heart” have gone Gold in Australia, “Lights Out” has gone Platinum, and she has even earned four ARIA nominations including Breakthrough Artist, plus an Australian Music Prize nomination. Her live resume is just as stacked, from Splendour in the Grass and SXSW to a four-month Sydney Opera House residency fronting a vaudeville adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Needless to say, Odette is show-stopping all on her own, and a force of nature in her own right. 

Blink took shape between 2022 and 2026 with producer and engineer Kiah Gossner, whom Odette met shortly after leaving her label. The pair clicked into gear quickly, and what followed from the dynamic duo’s relationship was a collaboration that doubled as a lifeline. The album began as she started recovering from an especially volatile stretch of her life, and I love how each song works sort of a vignette of that process: the disasters, the epiphanies, and the slow work of learning to be herself. Musically, it honors classic songwriting craft, with elements like strong prose and meter, then surrounds itself with these textures of decay, where guitars surge before melting away and twinkling, starlike sounds appear and fade. 

From the very opening of this record’s tracklist, you can hear staccato piano keys alongside a sort of shrieky, yet confident Odette vocal line. From her literal first words “In the sink, I shaved my head, now that it’s gone, all that’s been said remains” the tone is immediately set. That first track, “Godsink” is a really great opener laced with desperation not in an attention seeking way, but in an attention grabbing way, the sentiment is conveyed really well immediately through a beautifully potent combination of instrumentation and lyricism from Odette. 

“Reverence” is another standout for me, putting the spotlight on Odette’s vocal range in this soulful ballad that’s dripping with swagger and taste. You might think this is a cut and dry R&B tune if you only listen to the first minute, but seriously, I beg you, keep on listening. It’s bouncy, it’s fun, the guitar tone feels like screeching in your ears and the production on this track feels like it’s crawling under your skin in such an invasive yet exciting way. It’s such an interesting and attractive moment on Blink but what stuck with me is how it attracts you, not through traditional musical mastery, but sonic dissonance in a way that annoys you into liking it. 

I also couldn’t help but fall in love with “Seahorses” which is towards the ending of the record, it’s such a playful tune that sort of feels like all the weight and emotion and drama of the confessions just melts away and Odette just gets to dance through this piano-driven, cheeky little piece of social commentary. The rhythmic backing of the percussive drums/drum machine is such a great complement to this belting vocal hook, and I really just couldn’t help but head bob here. 

The very DNA of what makes Blink such a strong showing from Odette is its stubborn refusal to give up into despair and collapse in on itself. Anyone whose ever had an anxious episode knows that it’s so easy to give into those feelings and just let go in defeat, but with Blink, Odette gives us an answer to nihilism and a love letter to enduring hope, and the songs back that up by sitting honestly with that chaos before reaching into the light. What I think listeners will come to love about this record is it’s messy, cathartic, but it’s also beautifully human, and it confirms that no matter what, Odette will always find a way to write a cathartic banger that’s uniquely hers from top to bottom. 

Listen to 'Blink' below: