Dodie Returns with Lush New Single 'I’M FINE!'

The 2020s have been a big decade for singer-songwriter and vlogger Dodie. In 2021, she released her debut studio album ‘Build A Problem’ after half a decade of EPs and singles, followed by the ‘Hot Mess’ EP the next year. 

In 2023, she formed the indie-pop supergroup Fizz alongside Orla Gartland, Martin Luke Brown, and Greta Isaac, with their own debut album, ‘The Secret to Life’, dropping in October of the same year.

After spending much of 2024 quieter than the preceding years (though still finding time to post covers to her YouTube channel and contribute a cover of ‘Old Devil Moon’ to the Chet Baker tribute album ‘Re:Imagined’), Dodie has returned to her solo career with the new single ‘I’M FINE!’.

The track is a short but dense chamber folk trip, blending psychedelic bursts of strings and voices with lyrics that grapple with anxiety, paranoia and the conflicting emotions of approaching one’s thirties. When Dodie builds to the lines “Big brave girl / Twenty-nine now / I’m fine now / Really I’m fine now”, it’s clear that she’s trying just as much to convince herself that it’s true as she is her audience.

The outro is a beautiful stream of angelic voices, cascading strings, ambient synths, driving drums and subtle piano flourishes. “Sink into the feeling / Oh, really I’m, really I’m / Listen from a distance / No, really I’m, really I’m” drone a battalion of voices led by Dodie, describing the experience of dissociation as the instrumentation slowly fades out into a simple piano line to close out the track.

‘I’M FINE!’ is a fascinatingly haunting return for Dodie as she pits her musings on mental health against lush and layered instrumentation. The track was accompanied by a video directed by Dodie and longtime collaborator Sammy Paul, who has previously directed videos for Dodie as well as for other musicians like Cavetown. The video is full of captivating imagery, as we see Dodie dancing in a variety of spaces, like in a ballroom joined by a small group of other dancers, at the bottom of a pool of water, and in a cramped and hectic club, as well as walking in one place and being dragged across the floor by her legs.

Alongside ‘I’M FINE!’ and its video, Dodie announced a tour of the UK and Europe set to kick off in October this year and end the following month.

Ash Douglas

@ashdouglas_scot

Image: Charlotte Hadden

 

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