Ofri doesn’t really like bios.
In fact, it’s exactly this kind of self-aggrandising writing that the 24-year-old Sydney-based artist would rather avoid altogether – something that’s obvious once you spend any amount of time with the direct and unashamedly candid rumination that consists her particular brand of chamber folk. Perhaps even more immediately noticeable than her frankness is her voice, a wild animal which can inhabit every spectra of expression, from raw emotionality to heartfelt delicacy with every shade in-between. It’s precisely that assured confidence - those idiosyncrasies of a voice well-worn - that imbues her songwriting with a richness and clarity of concept that elevates her art.
“That Heavy Magnetism”, Ofri's debut album (released 5 July 2024), is the culmination of four years’ hard work, with many a life-defining experience woven throughout, along with a long list of influences and inspirations (Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, and Weyes Blood, to name a few). There’s a sense of growth and expansion, intimacy and space, inevitability, vulnerability, and quite a bit of existentialism. It’s part 90s art-pop revivalism, part Lilith Fair, part freak folk, and yet completely, utterly Ofri.