Music and visual artist Odelet delivers her ode to siren singers and hip hop

As a child growing up in Detroit, multi-talented artist Odelet developed an affinity for the soul and R&B music she was exposed to––and the analog sound that goes along with it. 

Now as an adult––with a flourishing career as a singer and composer and visual artist––she finds herself seeking out that familiar sound again, and the certain dreaminess it imparts. 

“It just feels natural for me, for that to be what embodies my work, for that sound to embody my work,” Odelet says. “Music that has just a little bit of a grittier sound. It’s a little less polished and it’s like a magnet for me. I love that ethereal feeling in it. It just feels like home.”

The California-based independent artist offers a glimpse of that home on her new EP, Hufflepuff, a four-song project that released April 20 ahead of her third full album, Pisces Pie, on May 11. Listeners are dropped into her stripped-down dreamworld from the start with the EP’s opener, “Eclectic.”

“It’s always fun, that idea of an EP right before an album, because you get to present an album in this miniature way,” Odelet says. “It’s this precursor, maybe a way that you draw people in or catch their interest, like an appetizer. The way those four songs fit together and play off each other is really satisfying, and it gets to be the segue into the album and there are going to be more surprises. Each song has its own vibe going on but they all work together. There’s a thread, but there’s a lot of contrast in it.”

Odelet debuted in 2021 with her 19-song compilation of minimalist songwriting and production, Experiment. She flexed her skills on the 12-track The Angels Album in 2022, which saw her immerse in the world of soul and R&B once again. She describes Pisces Pie as an ode to classic hip-hop production and siren singers. 

While that transition may seem premeditated, that’s not exactly the case.

“I’m always on to the next thought or idea,” she says. “I’ll get an idea and then someone else is like you haven’t even finished this one idea you’re working on, you’re getting distracted. The concept forHufflepuff and Pisces Pie was just this seed I had planted back during Experiment days. I’ve always known I’m going to do a whole bunch of different types of things musically, that I was going to free myself from tying myself down to one genre.”

Odelet was working on another project after The Angels Album, and it was fully fleshed out last fall, but got “slightly derailed” from a technical standpoint and she figured maybe now was the time to revisit the idea. What followed was like a “swift burst” of creativity. 

Odelet began performing her music while studying visual art at Portland State University, and the latter remains a key part of her artistic career. In 2022, she co-founded the production company Everlasting Tape to produce The Angels Album––her first full-band production––and the accompanying award-winning experimental music visual, which has since been screened by more than 50 film festivals. More of her visuals are on the way for the new project, including for singles “Whole” and “Mesh.”

“I was a visual artist first, and it all really has come together in a way that’s so seamless and makes so much sense to me in how it’s interconnected,” she says. “To have discovered this visual art that feels really exciting and true to me, that is sort of a collaging of film archives, it’s really magical.

Odelet’s producer and collaborator, Jack Mapel, says he’s never seen music visuals done in such a way: “These are so unique in that some of the visuals, once you see them with a song, it changes the way you hear the song.”

And Odelet says the visuals are necessary to fully articulate a message or meaning. 

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