Orla Gartland returns with a bold indie-pop single & music video for “Pretending“. Dublin-born and London-based, she writes & co-produces all of her music and is the creative visionary of her videos. The visuals of “Pretending” start and finish within a costume party’s bathroom, where Orla herself is dressed as a clown amongst various party-goers who enter the bathroom throughout the night. She’s got one point to make – she’s done with pleasing others by losing sight of herself. Orla stares at herself in the bathroom mirror during a song of true self-reflection singing, “All of my heroes are way sadder than me / Am I the only one pretending, pretending / One pretending?” Her use of a costume party is the metaphorical visual that more often than not, we either hide behind a facade or act differently in order to engage and socialize with people.
While Orla is being as self-reflective as one can be in a time where there are so many distractions to hide behind, she recalls what it was like to pretend when she was younger, “I used to make up lies to make myself seem more interesting. I’d tell people at school I broke my arm on the weekend or all of Westlife came to my house for dinner.” But nowadays as she continues to build her music career, there is definitely no need to stretch the truth to make herself, or her music more interesting. After building a buzz online by posting cover songs to YouTube, Orla ventured out on her own, crafting a distinct musical voice along with debut single, “Devil on my Shoulder” in 2012. She released her debut project, Roots, the following year, with subsequent EPs – Lonely People, Why Am I Like This? and Freckle Season – arriving in 2015, 2019, and 2020, respectively. Her music has amassed over 45 million Spotify streams, which is impressive, considering she hasn’t released a full-length album. With “Pretending” as the lead track off her forthcoming debut album expected in 2021, fans can only anticipate what other treasures and indie-pop realness awaits that album.
