Concert – Gordi

“Being surrounded by death made me think about how beautiful life is.” In her final year of medical school, Sophie Payten (alias Gordi) learnt how to certify a death. Far beyond what is shown in films – checking the pulse, hearing the monotonous sound of a heart that no longer beats, announcing the time of death – the process also involves observing a person who no longer responds. Gazing at that motionless, waxy skin, Payten says: “It reminded me of modelling clay – that soft, malleable substance you can shape with your hands before letting it harden. I thought of all the ways in which we resemble plasticine throughout our lives: how forces beyond our control twist us, distort us, stretch us to the limit and test our resilience. But sometimes, a profound change can also be deeply beautiful. ” These moments of transition – the anguish as well as the ecstasy of change – lie at the heart of her new album, *Like Plasticine*, which opens with the raw track ‘GD (Goddamn)’, recorded entirely on an iPhone. A reminder of everything we do to keep moving forward and hold on: Look around you. Slow down. Call your mum. Over sparse, distorted synth layers, Payten’s voice seems trapped underwater, or pressed against a window, observing from the outside the life she’s trying to rejoin. Writing the album was a genuine journey of self-discovery. Six months apart, Payten moved to Sydney for two one-week residencies: the first at Phoenix Central Park, the second in a church, both supported by patron Judith Neilson. “I think that, throughout that first week, I felt like a raw nerve, because I was finally confronting everything I’d been actively trying not to think about for a very long time. I said to myself: ‘Right, this is the moment. I’m ready to let it all out.’ ” In this safe space, alongside the delicate, cerebral pop that has become Gordi’s signature, an unexpected joy also emerged. She had written ‘Peripheral Lover’ some time earlier in Nashville, imagining that she might eventually hand the track over to another artist. The song was so luminous and expansive that, she says, “it just didn’t feel like me on the previous album”. But time has changed things. This pop anthem, which blends desire with deeply sensitive lyrics and a catchy synthetic beat, now places Payten alongside Robyn, Róisín Murphy and other masters of the genre. Tickets go on sale on 30 June at 10.00 am