British award-winning songwriter, Tom Odell has returned with his tender new single, “Butterflies“, featuring Norwegian singer-songwriter AURORA. The track is a sonic continuation of Best Day Of My Life, Tom’s latest album which is out now. “Butterflies” is a dedication to pure love and the tender lyrical declaration is complimented by the elegant blend of their voices, highlighting their natural synergy.
Speaking about the new track, Tom reveals, “I have been a fan of Aurora and her music for many years and it was a dream come true to make this song together. It’s a song about spending the day with somebody you really like and at the end of the day having to say goodbye to them, not knowing if you will ever see them again, but being happy for the experience regardless.”
Tom’s fifth studio album, Best Day Of My Life found him taking his focus off of commercial expectation around his songwriting, creating an environment where listeners can sit with the music and breathe. Inspired by a Rick Rubin quote on the importance of applying rules to yourself, he put that into practice, limiting himself to creating music using just his voice and his piano. The result is a work of minimalist beauty, comprising just Tom’s voice, a piano, and the occasional creak of a stool, to form what is not just Tom’s rawest and most honest album to date with its profound songwriting and masterful piano, but a body of work of which Tom is immensely proud.
Speaking about the album’s creation process, Tom shares, “I’ve never done an album that was just on the piano, and I thought it would be quite exciting. So, the whole album, there’s no other instrument on it. It is just piano and my voice. That was really incredible to work with those restrictions.”
Having fulfilled his major label record deal in 2021, Tom began to look ahead to a new era, a new way of working, and embarked on an independent new chapter of his career in which he reclaims control and takes back the reins of his artistry. Now an independent artist, free from the constraints of a major label and armed with a newfound sense of freedom, Tom Odell has stripped things back. Speaking about his newfound independence, Tom says, “I feel so free, so liberated to be an independent artist. There’s a huge amount of relief in this music, of just getting to do exactly what I want to do.”