Premiere: Oddnesse, ‘Overindulgence’ (full EP)

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Oddnesse (Photo by Daniel N. Johnson)

The heft of Oddnesse’s debut EP “Overindulgence” rests in the two tracks that bookend the five-song collection — “Doing My Thing,” which she is (finally), and “All American Lie,” which, the listener intuits, she had been living.

And as musical narratives of self-realization go, “Overindulgence” is a powerful one, a batch of expansive dream-pop that relies not on opaque imagery or obsequious pleading but lyrical specificity and a welcome equanimity. In tone, the EP can be summed up in this nifty lyric (lifted out of context): “You know exclamation points were used / where a period would do.”

The narrator is Rebeca Arango, the New Jersey-reared singer-songwriter who announced her presence in 2016-17 with the pitch-shifted shoegazing of “Incoming Call” and “Somewhere Somehow.” Since then, working with collaborators Grey Goon (Doug Walters) and Casey Feldman, Oddnesse has intermittently released singles that feed the more cerebral of musical diets.

A graduate of NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music before coming to L.A., Arango has day-jobbed in recent years as a writer — “chasing the illusion of security,” she says via social media, talking about “All American Lie.”

“I let my inner artist wither, and the situation became confused. Spiritual principle holds that you can be happy and at peace no matter where you are or what you’re doing or how many hours you’ve been staring at the computer, as long as you’re being of service,” she adds. “Clinging too tightly to this ideal, I kept telling myself that I should be happy with my job, and that if I couldn’t make it work, there must be something wrong with me. I wouldn’t allow myself to admit my basic human desire for autonomy: the ability to discern how your time and energy is spent. … Long story short, I am more at peace as a free agent once again.”

The lush second track “Hannah Montana” speaks to Arango’s double life, but, not all serious and searching, the EP also features the swirling, propulsive popgazing of “Donut Shop.” It’s a superficially escapist jam that still offers more than enough glaze for thought, ending with: “I’ve got a date with time itself / I think the world can wait.”

In sum, “Overindulgence,” which comes out Friday, isn’t terribly indulgent at all, unless you consider the mere sharing of emotional bloodletting in song an indulgence. Maybe the residual part of Oddnesse’s left brain whispers that it is; we should be thankful she’s letting the other side do the talking.

||| Stream: “Overindulgence” in its entirety

||| Previously: “It Runs Wild,” “Trust,” “Are You Down” video, “I Used To,” “Are You Down,” “Scream,” “Incoming Call”