Oracle Sisters Share Newest Track 'Blue Left Hand'

On February 14 the Paris-based three-piece Oracle Sisters - Julia Johansen, Chris Willatt & Lewis Lazar - will release their new album Divinations via Wizard Artists, the band’s own imprint. Now, they tease the album with 3rd single, “Blue Left Hand.”

The song, a lyrical tapestry weaving together history, philosophy, and cultural critique was inspired by Silvia Federici’s book Caliban and the Witch and represents the most raunchy track from the band so far, jumping with urgency. The new track is accompanied by an irreverent video directed by Jim Longden, who elaborates “We had a Priest with a gun fetish, a Nun who showers using money, a Drag Queen who spends the daytime running a formal business, two innocent ballet dancers, one of the set design team playing a Jester, while a disco dancer has an identity crisis of whether he is in the band or not. So, all in all, it was a fascinating day on the set of ‘Blue Left Hand."

Divinations’ 11 tracks channel mysticism and timeless storytelling as the Oracle Sisters draw on diverse influences, from the surrealist poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud to the introspective philosophies of Carl Jung. Musically, echoes of Talking Heads, Air, and Leonard Cohen resonate throughout. 

The band previously shared “Riverside” and “Alouette” which have drawn attention from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Paste, and Brooklyn Vegan among others. In support of Divinations, the band will embark on their biggest UK & European tour to date, stopping by at London’s KOKO on April 2. Tickets are available HERE and all dates are listed below. Watch this space for news of a North American tour! 

After the release of their first two singles “Always” and “Spotlight” Oracle Sisters signed with New York label 22Twenty, who released the band's twin EPs Paris I and Paris II, garnering critical acclaim and raking in over 60 million streams to date. Their debut album Hydranism (Clash Magazine called it “an undeniable masterpiece”’) carried the band on the tailwinds of success leading them through their first world tour including a headline run in North America. 

2023 was a whirlwind year for Oracle Sisters. The trio—Julia Johansen, Chris Willatt, and Lewis Lazar—followed the release of their debut album Hydranism with a globe-spanning tour that captivated fans and critics alike. From the highways between Knoxville and Nashville to sold-out clubs in rain-soaked Seattle, and festival stages across the UK, they logged countless hours on the road. Their journey was a tapestry of exhaustion and exhilaration, falling apart, brawls and disputes, love and acceptance. By the year’s end, just two days before Christmas, they found themselves in Tokyo, reflecting on the fleeting nature of time and the fragments of inspiration gathered along the way. It was there the seeds for their next album, Divinations, began to sprout.

Composing as a true trio for the first time, Oracle Sisters pieced together sketches formed during stolen moments on tour. These fragments coalesced into Divinations, an album shaped by the band’s nomadic existence. The recording sessions spanned cozy Parisian studios, a barn in northern France, and the storied Valentine Studios in Los Angeles. Their creative process embraced experimentation—swapping primary instruments, playing with toy drum machines, and crafting melodies on quirky tools like the OP-1 and a baby Casio keyboard. This spirit of discovery lent the album a sense of spontaneity and wonder.

At its core, Divinations channels mysticism and timeless storytelling. The band’s songwriting draws on diverse influences, from the surrealist poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud to the introspective philosophies of Carl Jung. Musically, echoes of Talking Heads, Air, and Leonard Cohen resonate throughout the album and tracks like “Riverside” delve into existential questions—“How far are you going? Is it more than money can buy?,” Elsewhere on the album “Marseille,” born in the city that gave the song its name, kicks off as a trance with lyrics that play between the sincere and desperate self help affirmations we give ourselves while trying to find a bridge between our individual lives and a universal feeling. Lead-single “Alouette” is Oracle Sisters at their most direct; propelled by a driving bassline and exuberant strings, the track summons the sound of 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s rock n roll as they sing about “getting out of dodge, finding a pirate ship and sailing home.” Inspired by the book Caliban and the Witch,“Blue Left Hand” is a lyrical tapestry weaving together history, philosophy, and cultural critique. The lyrics, “It’s in the harbor of every page / It’s in the corner of the playwright’s stage / And every player and every fake / And every witch that we burned at the stake,” reflect on the forces that shaped the capitalist society we know today.

Oracle Sisters push boundaries while crafting music that transcends temporal and geographic constraints. And while much of their new LP found inspiration from Oracle Sister’s life on the road, other tracks had been floating in their heads for sometime; ”the title Divinations gives honor to the through line from the start because as songwriters we don’t know where the songs come from,” Lazar explains. “Like divining out of thin air, songwriting has been a case of fishing in the dark trying to sculpt form out of feeling and structure out of intuition: formulating sentences, melodies and musical arrangements that make urgent and intuitive sense. We have no formal training in this and so our constant has always been our intuition with everything we do. For us writing music feels like a strange divination and so it gives honor to that magic.”

Across Divinations’ 11 tracks its not only geographic boundaries that were crossed but also the boundaries of time and circumstance. While their work may not consciously reflect specific worldly events, they seek to embrace the universal and offer a space for healing. “Good music would make sense to a farmer in 17th century France as it would to a pastry chef in Slovenia in the 21st century,” shares Lazar. “It’s not written for any temporal powers that be..it’s about expressing our common humanity and taking it from there.”

This intuitive approach fuels Oracle Sisters creative process - whether composing in a frozen French farmhouse or performing live with an ever-expanding lineup of collaborators, the band remains committed to exploring the unknown. Through Divinations, they hope to leave listeners feeling transcendent, levitating on waves of intuition and discovery.

Oracle Sisters Live Dates 2025

3/8 – Le 106 – Rouen, FR

3/13 – L’Épicerie Moderne – Lyon, FR

3/14– Le Rockstore – Montpellier, FR

3/15 – El Pumarejo – Barcelona, ES

3/18 – Ubu – Rennes, FR

3/19 – La Cigale – Paris, FR

3/21– La Vapeur – Dijon, FR

3/22 – Rocher de Palmer – Bordeaux, FR

3/24 – Sala Copérnico – Madrid, ES

3/25 – M.Ou.Co – Porto, PT

3/26 – Riquela – Santiago, ES

3/27– Bilborock – Bilbao, ES

3/28– Le Metronum – Toulouse, FR

4/1 – XOYO – Birmingham, UK

4/2 – KOKO – London, UK

4/3 – Band on the Wall – Manchester, UK

4/4 – Hangar34 – Liverpool, UK

4/5 – G2 – Glasgow, UK

4/6– Button Factory – Dublin, IE

4/8 – Thekla – Bristol, UK

4/10 – L’Aéronef – Lille, FR

4/11 – Doornroosje – Nijmegen, NL

4/12 – Paradiso – Amsterdam, NL

4/13 – Botanique/Grand Salon – Brussels, BE

4/14 – Columbia Theater – Berlin, DE

7/25 - Tramlines Festival - Sheffield, UK

Photo Credit: Ella Hermë

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