Experimental, multifaceted artist Otay:onii has announced her new album, Love Is In The Shit, set for release on 8 May via Pelagic Records. She has also unveiled the first video single from the album, "No Talent".

Otay:onii's music unfolds like a living organism – restless, curious, and constantly reshaping itself. Her sound is driven by her enchanting voice, which acts as texture, rhythm, and raw material, shifting between breath, chant, incantation, and fractured lyricism. From the beginning of her work, Otay:onii has treated sound as a physical substance, sculpting it with an experimental instinct that resists genre boundaries.

Speaking about the meaning behind the new single, Otay:onii says: "'No Talent' is the familiarity and passion for a certainty, and the courage to break it upon dire straits, and the determination to receive and give love after shattering to none. Many times we have lost ourselves, however, each one of us has a 'Shělìzǐ舍利子' (dragon ball) inside, it never left us, we have to hold it close while navigating all excruciation".

Love Is In The Shit is a deeply intimate album that strikes a compelling balance between control and chaos. Harnessing her ability to move from serenity to madness, the record explores shifting states of consciousness. Drawing in and challenging the listener, the songs play with comfort and discomfort, crafting the album's sonic arc so that its intention is unmistakably felt.

Reflecting on the album, Otay:onii explains: "This album speaks to what we cannot escape - the noise, the weight, the mess from the world, from others, from our own minds and bodies, what is damaged is damaged, we cannot change that one bit. Yet within the agony, here comes our process to restore and hold on to something. The burden becomes alchemy: transformed into passion, into what makes us feel alive, and living. By choosing what ignites us, we do not lose ourselves - and from that grounding, we are able to give more of ourselves to others".

Otay:onii (Lane Shi) is a multifaceted artist originally from Haining, China. Her artistic practice spans music, performance, installation, and film composition. Her acclaimed albums — NAG (2018), MíngMíng ٥٥ (2021), Dream Hacker (2023), and True Faith Ain't Blind (2024) — defy conventional structures, foregrounding philosophies drawn from lived experience.

She describes her process as: "Solving a puzzle with another puzzle — one that cannot be seen or touched, only felt".

Otay:onii's work has received recognition and accolades, including the bronze prize for Best Female Vocalist from the Global Music Awards and Best Sound from the Audiovisual Arts Industrial Incubator Awards. Link