Australian singer-songwriter Gordi has performed her “Peripheral Lover” on The Kelly Clarkson Show, offering fans a preview of her upcoming album Like Plastecine.
Gordi (aka Sophie Payten) performed the emotional track on the daytime variety show on Wednesday, June 12th, between dates of a packed world tour.
Payten delivered a stripped back version of the emotional and dreamy single which delves into the early stages of queer relationships, when one person is still in the closet. Check out the performance below.
“Accepting the available love instead of it orbiting around you. There comes a breaking point, a demand, a pleading for honesty – and the relationship either explodes into the open, or melts from the periphery away into nothing,” she explained after its release in February.
“It’s a simple song with a simple message, and so I wrote ‘KISS’ (‘keep it simple, stupid’) on a post-it note and stuck it on my desk in Melbourne, while I layered up guitars and synths and drums. Me at my most ‘pop’ – terrifying and ludicrously fun.”
While introducing Gordi’s performance, Clarkson noted the singer’s break from music came as she returned to work as a doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic. Payten had previously worked at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydnay as a junior doctor after completely her medical studies in 2018, but quit the position in January 2020 to work on her second album Our Two Skins.
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Her time back in scrubs would go on to shape the emotional depth of her first full-length album since 2020 Like Plastecine, set for release on August 8.
“Being surrounded by death made me think about how beautiful life is… I thought about all the ways we are like plasticine—how forces we can’t control contort us into shapes, stretch us thin, and test our resilience,” said Gordi. “But sometimes, heart-wrenching change can be a thing of beauty.”
Gordi will wrap up the US leg of her tour in Washington, DC, on June 15, before heading to Europe for 15 shows. She’ll return to Australia for the Darwin Festival on August 23, before taking the show across the country from November 4–16.
For information on tickets to her international tour, click here.
Gordi’s International Tour
Sunday, June 15
Songbyrd, Washington, DC
Thursday, June 26
SaSaZu, Prague, Czech Republic
Friday, June 27
Letnia Scena Progresji, Warsaw, Poland
Tuesday, July 1
Astra Kulturhaus, Berlin, Germany
Thursday, July 3
Le Trianon, Paris, France
Monday, July 7
013 Poppodium, Tilburg, Netherlands
Tuesday, July 8
Ronda, Utrecht, Netherlands
Tuesday, July 15
Pelicano, A Coruña, Spain
Thursday, July 17
Razzmatazz, Barcelona, Spain
Saturday, August 23
Darwin Festival, Darwin, NT
Thursday–Sunday, September 11–14
Sounds From A Safe Harbour Festival, Cork, Ireland
Sunday, September 14
Kino Events House, Cork, Ireland
Wednesday, September 17
Jaki, Cologne, Germany
Thursday, September 18
Lark, Berlin, Germany
Friday–Saturday, September 19–20
Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, Germany
Sunday, September 21
TivoliVredenburg (Club Nine), Utrecht, Netherlands
Wednesday, September 24
Trix, Antwerp, Belgium
Tuesday, November 4
Riverside Theatre, Perth, WA
Wednesday, November 5
Riverside Theatre, Perth, WA
Friday, November 7
Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide, SA
Sunday, November 9
Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
SOLD OUT
Monday, November 10
Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
Wednesday, November 12
State Theatre, Sydney, NSW
SOLD OUT
Thursday, November 13
State Theatre, Sydney, NSW
SOLD OUT
Saturday, November 15
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, QLD
SOLD OUT
Sunday, November 16
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, QLD
SOLD OUT
