ODESZA

Grammy-nominated Odesza have risen meteorically since their downtempo debut album Summer's Gone (2012) to become a staple of the electronic music scene with each release becoming increasingly ambitious. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the impetus for their fourth LP The Last Goodbye hinged on the global pandemic, as the duo reflected on its emotional impact on close friends and family. Despite being Odesza's most personal record to date, it takes an uplifting and celebratory tone.

Throughout its conception, Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight focused on themes of connection and reminiscence, interweaving audio clips from home video footage.

With collaboration always at the forefront of their songwriting process, Icelandic multiinstrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds’ contribution underpinned the album's creative direction, while vocal samples from ‘60s soul legend Bettye LaVette and 70s folk singer Stephen Ambrose cleverly intertwine past and future.

When you call an album The Last Goodbye, people are going to make obvious assumptions. Would you like to address that?

Harrison Mills: The title was absolutely a concern at first, but we'd played with lots of other names and they just felt like gimmicky versions of what we were really trying to say. It's more of a thematic title for the record, so don't worry, we are still a band.

Would you agree that the album has a more grandiose feel than your previous works?

I think that we've subconsciously tried to keep making things more epic and as we've learned to produce better and discover