Paris-based three piece Oracle Sisters announce their long awaited debut album Hydranism, due April 7th via US label 22TWENTY, and share its first taste in album opener: “Tramp Like You.” They also announce a spring headline world tour, buy tickets here.
WATCH THE VIDEO FROM “TRAMP LIKE YOU” HERE
At the tail end of 2020, Oracle Sisters decamped to the island of Hydra, Greece to write and record their debut album, Hydranism. Recorded over the course of two months, the 11-track album reflects a world suspended in time between the future and the past, and embraces larger than life ballads, intimate folk songs and table thumping rousers spun with the silk of poetic reveries.
Having released 2 critically acclaimed EPs in Paris I & Paris II in 2019 and 2020 respectively, Hydranism has been years in the making. A truly ambitious debut, merging the band’s influences of folk, rock, jazz and blues, Hydranism is set to be one of 2023’s most anticipated albums.
“Tramp Like You,” the album’s opener, is a suitably epic return, combining their classic dream-pop balladry, ear-worm melodies and cryptic lyrical turns of phrase emblematic of the troubadour spirit. The video - shot on 16mm film in the Agafay desert in Morocco - shows the artistic vision of the group, expanding the Oracle Sisters’ mythos further.
Speaking about the new single, the Oracle Sisters add: “Tramp Like You is about being rootless and restless and seeking out a life untethered from a world that weighs you down. You could say it represents a childlike longing for freedom associated with the timeless image of the wayfaring vagabond. It’s also a love letter - to fate, to experience, to betrayal, to rapture and ruptures, failed and mended relationships, and all this with an eye on the horizon.”
Oracle Sisters make music that is at once melodic, poetic, and visionary. Working with the lightning speed afforded by the simplicity of a piano and a guitar, they construct complexity through their lyrics which stem from observations of everyday life to the broader planes of symbolism. Their melodies, intertwined with harmony, always strive to uplift and surprise in the spirit of a great pop song coupled with the depth and feeling of a timeless folk song.
Born of an almost forgotten friendship stretching back to their childhood, Lewis Lazar and Christopher Willat stayed in touch after leaving their home in the flatlands of Belgium and scattered between New York and Edinburgh. It was in their early years of playing in rival and ultimately the same bands that their first connection as songwriters developed with Chris on drums and vocals, sometimes picking up the guitar with Lewis to pen an idea between their early shows. Amidst the whirlwind of pursuing their respective careers as underground cabaret singers and promoters, studying mathematics and philosophy, painting on commission, and writing as solo artists, they found their songwriting connection unbreakable and hard to match. When the opportunity was presented to them to move to Paris to help run a friend’s newly opened Cabaret in 2017 called ‘Le Carrousel’ (a stone’s throw away from le Moulin Rouge), they jumped at the opportunity and spent their first year writing songs daily in and amidst a blooming scene of artists in Paris that included Papooz, Polo & Pan, Antonin, Kids Return, l’impératrice, M...and a healthy group of Tarot card readers, Astrologers and soothsayers.
In this atmosphere of songwriting and social serendipity they coined the band name ‘Oracle Sisters’ and soon after met their first sister: Julia Johansen, a Finnish songwriter who had just arrived in Paris, guitar in hand, with a small part in a film and an even smaller suitcase after a few years travelling the world. Although they first welcomed her to be in the band due to her talent in singing harmony and how her voice blended perfectly with theirs...her secret talent on the drums soon became apparent, and thus began the creative adventure and roll of dice that is the ‘Oracle Sisters’.
Hydranism Tracklist
1. Tramp Like You
2. Hail Mary
3. RBH
4. Hot Summer
5. Cigale Song
6. Peat Fire Morning
7. Ruby On The Run
8. Paris III
9. Sailor Song
10. Lunch And Jazz Chords
11. Modern Love
Oracle Sisters Live Dates 2023
MARCH
13 Baby's All Right, Brooklyn, NY
14-18 SXSW
APRIL
18 Yes Basement, Manchester, UK
19 Nice n Sleazy, Glasgow, UK
20 Cumberland Arms, Newcastle, UK
21 OSLO, London, UK
23 Bitterzoet/Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
25 Cafe de la Danse, Paris, France
27 Pop Festival, Cologne, Germany
28 Molotov Skybar, Hamburg, Germany
29 Badehaus, Berlin, Germany
