{"id":326475,"date":"2023-08-15T16:32:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T16:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.co.uk\/?p=326475"},"modified":"2023-08-25T14:52:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T14:52:43","slug":"orla-gartland-is-making-her-raucous-return-to-the-alternative-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/music\/orla-gartland-is-making-her-raucous-return-to-the-alternative-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Orla Gartland is making her raucous return to the alternative scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish indie artist is back, more rocky and raw than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n

WORDS BY\u00a0JOSH OSMAN<\/strong>
\nPHOTOGRAPHY BY\u00a0FLOWER UP (ALEX EVANS)<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>

After years of fostering a dedicated cult following, Orla Gartland catapulted into indie stardom last year. Her 2018 song, \u2018Why Am I Like This?\u2019, became an overnight viral sensation, thanks to its inclusion in the hit Netflix teen series <\/span>Heartstopper<\/span><\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gartland released her debut album <\/span>Woman On The Internet<\/span><\/em>, in 2021, after a series of EPs over the last 10 years. Though she started with simple, yet sweet acoustic pop songs, the 28-year-old has slowly but surely curated a discography with an endlessly expansive sound. <\/span>Woman On The Internet<\/span><\/em> is a forceful debut that effortlessly demonstrates her impressive range, spanning drum-heavy, alternative rock-influenced sounds to gentle indie-pop. However, every quality is elevated by her versatile voice, as she floats from\u00a0 husky belts to smooth falsettos with ease.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, after a break from the Internet and public eye, Gartland is back. She\u2019s released a new solo single, \u2018Kiss Ur Face Forever\u2019<\/a>, which has also made it onto the soundtrack for <\/span>Heartstopper<\/span><\/em>\u2019s second season. Plus, she\u2019s teamed up with indie icons dodie, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown to form FIZZ, a band whose music she described as \u2018bottled joy\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We caught Garland while she\u2019s on holiday to talk about <\/span>Heartstopper<\/span><\/em>, FIZZ and her most precious music memories.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hey Orla! How’s it going?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I’m all good! I’m on a very remote island off the coast of Ireland with my family and it’s straight out of Father Ted, it’s really good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We haven’t had new solo stuff from you for a while! What have you been up to?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Gosh, what have I not been up to? I’ve been writing my second album. After the first, I was doing a lot of shows and went on a couple of tours. As of last year, I’ve been working on album two and writing a side-project album with my friends in a band called FIZZ. I was offline and it was a publicly quiet time, but in my own life it was jammers. That’s the weird thing about the internet, that feeling of ‘if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it fall?’ Sometimes the internet feels like that, if you didn’t post online that you were doing everything, were you actually doing it?<\/span><\/p>\n

The new song, ‘Kiss Ur Face Forever’, is finally out and it’s in Heartstopper<\/em> season two. How’re you feeling about it?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Great! This year has been so busy, I’ve enjoyed doing all these things with the band, but I’m also really happy to have a little moment for me in the middle of it. I wrote it at the end of last year with Tom, my co-producer for <\/span>Woman on the Internet<\/span><\/i>, and my housemate, Lauren Aquilina. She’s one of the best songwriters I’ve ever seen – if songwriting was an Olympic sport, she’d be gold. We’ve been best friends for about eleven years and we’d never written a song together until now. That was really special to write with someone I know really well, who I felt very understood by. She made the whole thing so effortless. I’m really excited to have it out and play it live! It’s a real statement of intent – I hope it can act as a reminder that I’m still here and working on music. Hopefully it’ll set a more raucous, raw tone for what might be to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s been nearly two years since Woman On The Internet<\/em>, your debut album. How do you feel about it two years later?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Very proud. I’d been playing music for so long before it, and there were a lot of times in the years before that where I could have got started on a debut and it just didn’t feel right. I had quite a lot of false starts. I was several EPs in, and they’re a bit, ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride.’ It was a long time coming by the time it came around. Two years later, having that under my belt, I don’t know if that is true but I definitely feel I’ve been taken more seriously for having a big body of work out in the world. I released it independently and I’m really proud of how it did. Often, with creative people, you can sit with your work for too long and it gets a little stale, but I still listen back to those songs, and I’m like, ‘Ok, still slaps!’<\/span><\/p>\n