Gordi returns with the elegiac new single 'Sandwiches'

Gordi’s Sophie Payten is off to a flyer in 2020. ‘Sandwiches’ is Gordi’s first official single since her 2017 album Reservoir. It follows the bushfire relief single ‘The Cost’.

It’s been two and a half years since the songwriter from rural NSW released her debut album. Payten started the new decade with the bushfire relief single ‘The Cost’. All royalties from ‘The Cost’ – including those gathered by Gordi’s labels Jagjaguwar and Liberation – are going to the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Payten is from Canowindra in central west NSW and knows first-hand the sort of damage extreme weather events can wreak on small townships. “Our country is heating from the climate crisis and now people are dying because of it,” Payten said in a statement. “We cannot survive the inaction. We need our leaders to lead.”

Watch: Gordi – Sandwiches

The brand new single ‘Sandwiches’ also deals with topics close to the heart. It’s a tribute to Payten’s late grandmother. “You’d be on the phone Every time we’d get home / And I think I thought you’d be there,” sings Payten in the song’s chorus. It’s one of many moments from ‘Sandwiches’ that stirs up feelings of longing and incites realisations of life’s essential impermanence.

Payten recorded ‘Sandwiches’ in Canowindra with producers Chris Messina and Zach Hanson (no not Zac Hanson). The pair previously worked on Bon Iver’s i,i and 22, A Million albums as well as releases by The Blind Boys of Alabama and Hand Habits.

Gordi has spent the two and half years since Reservoir came out touring locally and internationally. The renowned 27-year-old songwriter just wrapped a bunch of dates supporting UK outfit Bear’s Den. She’ll soon join Of Monsters and Men for a lengthy tour of the US and Mexico.

Gordi also appears on the new Willaris K single ‘Indifferent’, which came out in late January. Gordi promises that Australian tour dates will be announced soon.