Gordi, the moniker of Sophie Payten, explored the themes of death, introspection, and sexuality in her spectacular sophomore album, Our Two Skins, which was released in June. The Australian singer can’t tour behind the record for obvious reasons, so she instead took the grand Sydney Opera House stage in a livestream to perform several tracks from her recent record.
Payton filled the large, empty Opera House with an 8-track setlist which included the numbers “Unready,” “Sandwiches,” and “Aeroplane Bathrooms.” After giving a rendition of her album opener, Payton said: “I did think the first time I’d be here there’d be a few more people in the crowd. But I’m imagining you all. But I’m imagining you as an NRL match’s cardboard cutouts. It is a true dream to be here.”
In a recent interview with Uproxx ahead of her album’s release, Payten said she wanted to make songs fit both for introspective moments and to share with friends:
“I wanted to make a couple of songs that you can listen to on your own. And I wanted to make a couple of songs that you listen to with others. The songs that you listen to on your own come more naturally to me, I feel like I’ll write those for the rest of the time. But I find that I have to be more careful with my sonic choices when I’m making songs like ‘Unready’ or ‘Sandwiches,’ because it’s not always my natural instincts. My natural instincts are those quieter moments like ‘Aeroplane Bathroom,’ or something. And all of those songs, like ‘Aeroplane Bathroom,’ ‘Volcanic,’ ‘Radiator,’ they all took the least amount of time because it felt very natural.”
Watch the full Sydney Opera House performance above.
Our Two Skins is out now via Jagjaguwar. Get it here.
