Ahead of her new album, Odetta Hartman shares haunting, banjo-led tale “Widow’s Peak”

NYC/DC artist Odetta Hartman's trip to the New Mexican deserts inspired her previous single “Misery” and here, we find a similar chilling atmosphere. Thunderstorm coupled with stripped-down banjo plucks set the stage for the song that conjures up images of a lone outlaw in a hostile environment, inducing as much mystery as tension.

“Widow's Peak” is a dusty banjo dirge that soon opens up into a haunting wall of sound comprised of drum machines, deep bass and detuned strings - the latter was a happy accident. The initial intention was to record a fiddle solo, but as she sound-checked the violins in multiple rooms, Hartman played back all of the test takes as one and fell in love with the wall of sound bringing the track to new heights.

Hartman told us more about the track, saying "Sometimes lightning strikes and an entire song reveals itself in an instant. Sometimes I feel like a vessel, channelling stories from beyond, and this spooky tale certainly sounds like it came from another world [...] Of all the songs on the record, I am most proud of this composition."

Teetering on the darker side of the folk spectrum while convening with the ghosts and musical traditions of the past, Hartman immerses the listener into her self-described world of “cowboy soul”. Her Americana roots meet at the crossroads of a more electronic and experimental approach of her producer, partner and muse Jack Inslee brings to the table. Experimenting with found sounds & foley, the pair have developed a sonic vernacular built around playing around with the latter and all the instruments Odetta Hartman can play, resulting in a sound that is out of time and flying in the face of what’s hot at the moment.