Ottilia :: "Heartless"

Ottilia is still one of the brightest young stars in independent music. Still a teenager, perhaps the best metric of this future success is the conspicuous disappearance of her most infectious track, "40 Million Light Years" from the Internet. This is the empty space that signals an arrival, a reverse dramatic irony where the people on stage know something profound that is hidden from the audience. The joke is on us. On latest demo, "Heartless," Ottilia pursues a more meditative aesthetic, channeling Lykke Li, Amanda Mair and others. The song muddles along under its own power, persuasive in its austerity and the central lyric of the chorus, "If I had a heart left to love you, I would do," one of those grammatically incorrect statements that holds a disjointed and terrible power.