Divinations by Oracle Sisters
2023 was a whirlwind of a year for Oracle Sisters. After long hauls driving from to Virginia to Chicago, Kentucky by way of Newcastle, Glasgow, Los Angeles, London and New York, time never felt more like sand running through their fingers. Still catching their breath, they landed in Tokyo two days before Christmas with a carousel of flashing images running through their minds : billboards on the side of the road between Knoxville and Nashville advertising guns and lawyers to playing a concert the furthest away from home under the rattling tin roof of a Seattle club on a perfectly rainy day. They had their share of exhaustion and exhilaration, falling apart, brawls and disputes, love and acceptance and at the end of it all...needing some rest, between Japan and France, the writing began.
After putting back the scattered puzzle pieces of their experiences, they chose an old farm house in the middle of fields frozen over in the early cold winter months of 2024, isolated for the first time together as songwriters, composing as a three piece for the first time. A deadline to complete their album loomed, an album that, until then, had been written on the road over stolen moments. The first recording sessions for the album that would become 'Divinations' were just a few weeks away.
In new album Divinations Oracle Sisters delve in to their love of Talking Heads, Richard Hawley, Air, Suicide (the band), 80's Leonard Cohen, early Johnny Cash, some New Order and some Chet Baker. Sounds from toy drum machines and the novelty of swapping their main instruments between themselves and writing parts on the OP-1 set the direction. A baby Casio keyboard or an old fashioned guitar became friends. The imagery inspired by the zeitgeist of their times with flashes of news cycles, scrolling cultures, lyrics and information like pastiches and collages..the tea leaves of language, meaning as consistent as the roll of a dice became the lyrical blueprint..amongst all these stories emerge the human heart freeing itself like a fly from a cobweb..in that flutter of inspiration a song is sung.
Founding their own label Wizard Artists , Divinations is written and produced by the band themselves with art work made from old scrapbook newspapers, pictures taken on the run, cut up and collaged on the living room floor, Oracle Sisters is a home made project and now a family run operation.
Tracklist
| 1. | Riverside | 4:43 |
| 2. | Marseille | 3:56 |
| 3. | Alouette | 3:24 |
| 4. | Blue Left Hand | 3:45 |
| 5. | Velveteen | 3:29 |
| 6. | Shotguns | 4:23 |
| 7. | Rodeo | 3:14 |
| 8. | Moon On The Water | 5:12 |
| 9. | Talk Is Cheap | 3:01 |
| 10. | Banshee | 3:38 |
| 11. | Divinations | 4:26 |
Credits
©℗ 2025 Wizard Artists
Mixed by Noah Georgeson
License
All rights reserved.
Based in Paris, Oracle Sisters is composed of childhood friends Lewis Lazar and Christopher Willatt, and Finnish musician Julia Johansen. Their debut album, Hydranism, is set to be released in early 2023. Recorded on a remote island during the pandemic, it embraces larger than life ballads, intimate folk songs, table thumping rousers and a vision of the world suspended in a timeless place.