Biography
Odetta Hartman fuses Americana, punk, and jazz into a country-soul foundation that pulses with electronica and experimental textures, a blend already evident across her 2018 album Old Rockhounds Never Die and the 2024 follow-up Swansongs.
Raised in Manhattan, she began as a classically trained violinist until her mother introduced a guitar that shifted her path. While still in high school she started composing, sampling soul, country, and psych rock along the way; after college she joined a folk ensemble and crisscrossed the United States. Her earliest recording, the Tally Marks EP, surfaced in 2012 with four country-folk pieces, and two years later she issued the funk- and soul-inflected BARK.
In 2015 she unveiled her first full-length, 222. Partner Jack Inslee produced the set, which wove her earlier influences into a more exploratory electronic framework. A job opportunity, coupled with the launch of a new outpost for her family’s pizza business, drew Hartman and Inslee from Manhattan to Washington, D.C. ahead of her next project. On that sophomore effort Inslee handled production and electronic details while Hartman performed every instrument, threading her own field recordings through fingerpicked banjo and acoustic guitar. Old Rockhounds Never Die appeared in 2018 via Memphis Industries and Northern Spy.
Her 2024 release, Swansongs, marked her debut on Transgressive Records and delivered a charged, confident collection that braided maximalist Americana with vaudevillian pop, gritty garage rock, and electro-gospel.
Raised in Manhattan, she began as a classically trained violinist until her mother introduced a guitar that shifted her path. While still in high school she started composing, sampling soul, country, and psych rock along the way; after college she joined a folk ensemble and crisscrossed the United States. Her earliest recording, the Tally Marks EP, surfaced in 2012 with four country-folk pieces, and two years later she issued the funk- and soul-inflected BARK.
In 2015 she unveiled her first full-length, 222. Partner Jack Inslee produced the set, which wove her earlier influences into a more exploratory electronic framework. A job opportunity, coupled with the launch of a new outpost for her family’s pizza business, drew Hartman and Inslee from Manhattan to Washington, D.C. ahead of her next project. On that sophomore effort Inslee handled production and electronic details while Hartman performed every instrument, threading her own field recordings through fingerpicked banjo and acoustic guitar. Old Rockhounds Never Die appeared in 2018 via Memphis Industries and Northern Spy.
Her 2024 release, Swansongs, marked her debut on Transgressive Records and delivered a charged, confident collection that braided maximalist Americana with vaudevillian pop, gritty garage rock, and electro-gospel.
Albums
Singles
