The Friday Dispatch
Heartworms, Patrick O'Dell, Joni, Terra Twin and more
From the shadow to the stage with Heartworms
“Heartworms world” is a place that’s been painstakingly built over Josephine Orme’s 26 years – from difficult years growing up in Cheltenham (she remembers herself as “a very shy child” who had “so much to say, but just never was able to say it in front of people, even family.”), to entering foster care aged 14, to busking in the street, to honing her sound while enrolled in music college. Now, with Orme’s debut album, Glutton for Punishment, that world is coming into full bloom.
When she first caught the music world’s ear with her 2023 EP A Comforting Notion, her take on spiky, danceable post-punk was fully formed enough to wow critics and listeners alike. It also caught the attention of heavy hitters like St. Vincent and The Kills, both of whom brought her on tour. It’s allowed Orme to dial up the intensity she devotes to her live show, where even the simplest movements have grandiose implications. In a pop landscape where we are so tied to diaristic writing or signifiers of ‘authenticity,’ there is something almost out of time and place about the care she puts into performance, knowing how effective a tool it can be.
“To me, acting is processing real emotions, just in a different way,” she says, moving her hands theatrically as she speaks. “I say that I am an actor because of my love for creating a world and a character, for adapting for the audience.” She walks me through the process of choreography she’s devised for her live show with a friend who’s a movement coach, creating what she refers to as “rituals” to get into songs after finding it difficult to get into character while on tour in America. For instance, when Glutton for Punishment’s third single “Extraordinary Wings” begins, she’ll “stand with my hands up and breathe into the movements to make it feel like I'm taking shape.”
In Orme’s songs, you can hear this theatricality seeping through the speakers, dressing up for you as you listen to the precision of her voice on these songs, snapping to attention as conflict arises again, sniffing out our most human faults to ballooning them into something as unruly and alien as our dreams. On Glutton for Punishment, Orme tests how far she can stretch all that defines the world of Heartworms: the sense of whimsy, the theatrical darkness, and, perhaps most crucially, the pop instincts. She extends her hand and the world of her own design envelops you – dreaming you into something more gorgeous than this world can bear, letting the dance go on.
Out this week is Manic Street Preachers’ Automatic; Horror by Bartees Strange; Mallrat’s Light hit my face like a straight right; and, of course, the deluxe edition of Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet. Terra Twin’s Static Separation dropped as well as Katie Gregson-MacLeod’s first post-Sony single, “Teenage Love,” and the stunning video for “27” from Gal Go and Diles Que No Me Maten.
Patrick O’Dell on The Smiths
I think you could get rid of the ten best Smiths songs and you’d still have one of the best bands of all time. Almost every one of them means something to me.
When I was thinking about choosing my favourite song, I put on a random Smiths playlist and I was like, ‘How many songs do I have to listen to before I skip one of them?’ But “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” is the peak.
I think about this time I was with a girlfriend in London. When I go to London I look the wrong way to cross the street, and we both almost got hit by a double decker bus because I looked the wrong way and had to dive back. I was like, ‘Damn, it could’ve been like that fucking song, it was so close’.
But really, it takes me back to New York City. I didn’t listen to The Smiths when they were around. When I was aware of them, Morrissey had already put a bunch of solo records out, but I burned through the discography and got into it. Meat Is Murder got me hooked, but this song towers above the rest for me.
I remember when skaters didn’t play The Smiths. There was a time in the late ‘90s when skaters were pretty homophobic, or at the very least weird, about what they were into and what it said about them. I would go on skate traps as a photographer, and I think Jerry Hsu was the first person where I looked through his CDs and saw he had The Smiths in there.
It felt almost subversive to be so into them at that time. Him and I started vibing on it and forcing the guys to play it, but it was something that skaters didn’t enjoy. It felt like, for a time, we were in a little club that set us apart.
Patrick O'Dell is an American photographer, filmmaker, skateboarder, and skateboard journalist
Launched a few weeks back, Five Radio Stations is group show comprising five artworks that are also radio stations co-curated by Seb Emina who runs the delightful Read Me Substack and writes for the likes of Fantastic Man and The Gentlewoman. The works can be enjoyed like any radio station, as a focus or in the background, and for a shorter or longer duration of time. Although they are automated, the stations are not on-demand but streamed as live, meaning each listener hears the same thing at the same time as an invisible community of other people.
The introduction…
At long last, now-London-based Joni has announced that her first full-length album, Things I Left Behind, is officially on the way. We simply couldn’t be more excited. Before the record drops, let us introduce you if you haven’t met yet…
Hometown… I'm hometown-less. A few places I've called home: Honolulu, Hawaii; Mystic, Connecticut; Naples, Italy; Miami; New York City; Los Angeles; Sasebo, Japan; and currently, London.
Describe your sound… Like a moldy cream donut.
How you started playing music… Piano lessons with the little old lady who lived down the street.
Last book you read… Orbital by Samantha Harvey.
Best book you’ve read… Too hard to pick, so top three: East of Eden by John Steinbeck; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Essential tip for moving to a new city… Join a running club. Become a local at a coffee shop. Get a dog to walk in the park.
Joni’s album Things I Left Behind is released on 11 April via Hand in Hive/Keeled Scales
Something Old, Something New
Every week, we share recommendations from the Best Fit community — one from the past, another from the present. This week, Maxim Baldry of Terra Twin on Arcade Fire’s Funeral (2004) and Naima Bock’s Below A Massive Dark Land (2024).
Arcade Fire’s Funeral is the album that saved me from Green Day and Linkin Park as a kid. It’s very well known now but at the time it felt like being let in on a secret, especially when contrasted with what people around me were listening to growing up in Barcelona.
I’d never heard music arranged like this before and I was hooked pretty fast. The whole album is such a journey, but the end of ‘Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)’ is still one of the greatest 60 seconds of music I’ve ever heard. “Take it from your heart, put it in your hand”, followed by this boil-over that’s been brewing for the whole song. You’ve got so much melody on the go between the guitars and the violin and there’s almost too much happening but they’re morphing each other and feeding each other in away that would have made getting rid of any of it detrimental to the rest. Meanwhile Win Butler is screaming like a cat that hasn’t been fed and the snare sounds like it’s about to rip. It’s huge and It’s perfect.
I first put Below A Massive Dark Land on whilst driving back on a rainy day from Brighton in late 2024. It took me on an unexpected, emotional journey of catharsis and release. “Below A Massive Dark Land” is detached from a lot of music at the moment with its simplicity and direct storytelling. Naima Bock’s voice rises and dips throughout the record with such unbearable honesty. It pulls you straight into their whirlwind of storytelling. Instruments appear with great fanfare and disappear into nothingness, putting you on edge with great intrigue.
“Feed My Release” myth weaves alienation with lines like “see how I break seven times more than you,” working with real precision to express such a fragile experience. Lush harmonies on “Takes One” evoke hopeful days before disintegrating into silence and then a cacophony of claps, drums and violin take you on journey of nostalgic retribution.
Listening to this record reminds me that the sun will always shine after rainy days.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now. Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Bellzzz, Joni, SAILORR, Yoshika Colwell, Carriers, and coverstar Daffo.
“Why can’t it just be magic all the time?”
“What.”