Stream: Odessa, ‘Thunder’

Kevin Bronson on October 7th, 2019

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Since Odessa released her self-titled album in 2015, she found herself under some dark clouds. But the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has weathered the storm.

With that album (and a memorable spring 2015 residency at the Bootleg), Odessa — full name: Odessa Jorgensen — burst out of the shadows of being a side player (Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Rayland Baxter, Old Crow Medicine Show, Abigail Washburn, Gill Landry). But her record deal soured, her bank account dwindled and, worse, she felt creatively broke. “The picture I’d painted was melting,” she says. “Nothing had gone the way I thought it would, and I genuinely didn’t know what to do.” She retreated to a house in the mountains, where she recharged her batteries and started writing again.

The result, eventually, is the album “All Things,” due Nov. 15, made with producers Jonathan Wilson, Pat Sansone (Wilco) and Jim Eno (Spoon). The first single is “Thunder,” a billowing confessional, lavishly and tastefully orchestrated. Like the song that first earned Odessa acclaim, the 2012 single “I Will Be There,” “Thunder” straddles the line between intimate (owing to her buttery, precise vocals) and expansive (owing to the atmospheric arrangement). You can almost imagine the view that songwriter had from her mountaintop: It’s stunning.