Multi-award-winning Naarm/Melbourne-via-Belgium alt/indie artist Romanie (she/her) today returns with her new single and video ‘Uh Oh’, a searingly introspective track about life’s chaotic journey grounded by her signature self-awareness and wry humour, written during a time of personal turbulence and signifying a darker, grittier sound. ‘Uh Oh’ is Romanie’s first new single since her acclaimed debut album Are We There Yet?.
The rumbling, grunge-inspired internal monologue across ‘Uh Oh’ brings to life the chaos of life’s lowpoints as she “takes it on with a bit of humour”, harnessed by Romanie’s warm, earthy guitar, glitchy synths and heart-piercing vocals which culminate in a fuzzed out cathartic scream at the end of the track. Co-produced by Romanie and Sam Swain (RAT!hammock, Obscura Hail), ‘Uh Oh’ was written with Hamish Mitchell (Armlock) and initially recorded at Naarm’s Purple Wayne Studios following Romanie’s first full band national tour in 2024, tracked over two days with her live band (Emma Rumble – she/her – bass, Naomi Best – they/them – drums, Thomas Swain – he/him – guitar/BVs) at Naarm’s Sunset Pig Studios. The track is accompanied by a suitably late 90s/early 00s-esque video directed by Young Ha Kim (Mdou Moctar, Kaiit, Press Club) and shot on Wurundjeri Country at Harvey Wreckers and Gary Mac car wrecking yards in Cranbourne – a winking call-back to the shiny, pastel-tinged car in the video for Romanie’s Are We There Yet, and a symbol of her stepping away from her older sound.
On ‘Uh Oh’, Romanie shares, “I was going through a rough patch in life with some health scares and homesickness and caught up with my friend Hamish Mitchell, we wrote ‘Uh Oh’ over a couple of hours. A few months later we started playing it live – it’s a really fun song to play live. This was the first time taking my live band into the studio and I think Sam Swain captured our energy really well. The scream got added towards the end of the session mainly as a joke but everything evolved so naturally and we kept it in. For the video, I emailed about 20 different car wreckers around Victoria and some of them were not super enthusiastic: one of them got back to me just saying ‘Go get fucked. Sent from my iPhone’. Darren from Harvey Wreckers and Troy from Gary Macs both replied with enthusiastic good news a few days before I was about to abandon the idea, and the locations were so amazing – the whole day I was smiling and giggling amongst the wrecks.”
