Odeya Nini and Nicolas Snyder
Hello, My Name is Odeya
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6 illinoisentertainer. com july 2026
hen it comes to classifying her singular singing talent, L. A.-based artist Odeya Nini doesn’ t make it easy for the casual listener. Humbly, she’ ll run down an impressive list of personal accomplishments and their appropriate appellations, such as interdisciplinary vocalist, contemporary composer, yoga instructor, and a cappella experimenter who is at home performing outdoor concerts in nature as she is in classy, marble-echoey museums. And she also maintains a busy cottage industry outside ethereal album releases like Ode, working as a vocal coach who conducts private, healing sound baths for more adventurous clients.“ But as opposed to‘ singing,’ I call what I do‘ sounding’ or‘ vocalizing,’” she declares.
All cetacean jokes aside, the mother of two adds,“ I DO consider myself a singer also, but when people hear that word, there’ s already a structure or a form attached to it, and a preconceived idea of what a song is. And then they’ re trying to relate what they’ re hearing to an idea of what they THINK it is, so I don’ t like calling myself a vocalist, because it gives me more space and so people won’ t have those same kinds of expectations.”
Therefore, you can count on your expectations being summarily shattered via Nini’ s adventurous new duo MMOONN with SoCal composer / producer Nicolas Snyder. Rooted in the edgy sonic trailblazers she studied at The New School for Jazz from 2004-’ 08, like Anthony Braxton, Stan Brakhage, even John Cage, the eponymous disc floats in on the pillowy synths and tinkling glass shards of of album opener“ Moondrum,” paced to a funereal beat and sepulchral / intonations, which iOS contrasted sharply by the ensuing“ Blizzard,:” and its light, summery vocals, and a methodical, eerie processional dubbed“ Change.” A cavern-reverb“ Want” picks up the pace, only to slide headlong into the gravelly tar pit of“ From the Mother,{““ Tzur,” and what rings like a closing warning about the perils of overindulgence, although no phrases in English actually take recognizable shape. But that’ s Nini’ s calling card, her stock in texturefavoring trade— she’ s nothing if not bare-bones visceral, and surprisingly, most of the Diamanda Galas-gutteral throat noises on“ MMOONN” are hers, while the contrasting flighty, almost falsetto stylings were crooned by her bandmate, Snyder. The set definitely has a tangible 4AD feel to it, and make no mistaken— Nini could easily give Dead Can Dance diva Lisa Gerrard a run for her opera-exotic money. And that is no mean feat.
Nini chalks it up to her challenging Jazz School curriculum.“ It was a different kind of jazz,” she explains.“ It was music where you could feel the energy at the center of it, but it wasn’ t about the notes or the melodies or the harmonies— I mean, they’ re all there, but it was about the story, the emotion, so that you can have your very own experience with it. What aesthetic credo does Nini follow? It was a quote hat she stumbled across early on, long before she met Snyder in 2021 at a California-mountaintop forest glade concert she was playing( he’ d never heard a voice like hers before; they immediately hit it off, with her initially adding her exotic voice to animated TV shows he was soundtracking).“ It was one of Jackson Pollock’ s quotes that really inspired me,” she says.“ He said,‘ I want to express my feelings, my emotions, and
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