Orla Gartland shares long awaited debut album "Woman on the Internet"
(New York, NY - August 20, 2021) Fast-rising Dublin singer-songwriter-producer Orla Gartland today shares her long awaited debut album Woman on the Internet via her own label New Friends. STREAM HERE. The culmination of years of music making, live shows and Gartland honing her production skills, Woman on the Internet features the singles “More Like You”, “Pretending”, “Zombie!”, “Do You Mind?”, and “You’re Not Special, Babe”, and finds Gartland deliberately putting herself front and centre of its creation and lyrical content.
Written during the first lockdown of 2020 at her studio in Acton, and recorded in October at Devon’s Middle Farm Studios with assistance from co-producer Tom Stafford and Gartland’s own two-piece touring band, Woman on the Internet represents a huge step forward for the 25-year-old. Today she cites Haim, Phoebe Bridgers and Strange Mercy-era St. Vincent as being particularly influential reference points, but the results are utterly unique, finding Gartland moving between alt-rock, punk, folk and synth-flecked pop, with a succession of inventive arrangements and insightful observations.
Today, Gartland shares the video for the album’s opening track “Things That I’ve Learned”, which sees her imparting hard-won wisdom over complex, clipped percussion, staccato guitars and close vocal
harmonies including, “Take up all the space even the when you think you don’t deserve it,” and “Say what’s on your mind, every single time, don’t regret it.” Watch the self-filmed bedroom video below.
In a world where we’re taught to aspire to unattainable levels of perfection, Orla Gartland’s unfiltered honesty is a breath of fresh air. Balancing normal insecurities and a self-deprecating wit with impressive levels of self-reliance and steely determination, the Dublin-born, London-based singer-songwriter/producer has never pretended to be anything other than a work in progress, and has always used her music as a vehicle for self-discovery.
“When I was a few songs into writing the album it became clear that Woman on the Internet is about the chaos of my 20s,” she expands. “It's a different chaos to your late teens, such a different brand of angst. I feel so much more settled and sure of myself now than I was when I was 18 or 19 but I'm still just half the person I'm going to be and to capture that became really important."
Gartland explains that the album title references a nebulous, self-help-type figure. “She’s a caricature; a nameless, faceless figure telling me to eat better or buy some specific hair product; when I feel low I'm so vulnerable to questionable advice. The woman appears in these songs as someone I look to for guidance when it feels like no one in my real life can help, when I'm truly lost. A lot of this album is about learning to really own that lostness."
This commitment to honesty stems not just from self-discovery but from a desire for genuine connection. “I'd love for people to come away understanding me more, but also it doesn't have to be all about me. Even if it's the odd lyric here and there, I’d love it if people felt more understood just by listening to the album.” And, ironically, it’s precisely by embracing and laying bare these imperfections that Gartland has created her most compelling work to date, moving between alt-rock, punk, folk and synth-flecked pop, with a succession of inventive arrangements and insightful observations.
Woman on the Internet follows Gartland’s first two acclaimed EPs, 2019’s Why Am I Like This? and the follow up Freckle Season, which was released in February last year. Between them, Gartland’s songs have amassed over 75 million streams and more than 750,000 monthly Spotify listeners, and seen her compared to artists such as Stevie Nicks, St. Vincent, Regina Spektor and HAIM.
Born and raised in Dublin, Gartland started writing songs when she was 14 years old. Unable to convince any of the 18+ local pubs and venues to let her perform, she honed her craft online, before heading out on tour the day she finished school. On her return she packed her bags and moved to London, spending the next few years writing, recording, touring and gathering fans apace.
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Stream Orla Gartland’s debut album Woman on the Internet available now HERE.
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