Otala – My Old House
London four-piece Otala return with “My Old House”, their third single of 2026 and the latest preview of their upcoming EP Better Than The End, due 22 April. The band — Oscar Thorpe on guitar and vocals, Rory Allen on bass, Charlotte Foulkes on sax, and Jacob Wing on drums — recorded the whole EP over a single weekend in early January at Premises Studios with Louis Milburn producing and engineering. Shawn Joseph at Optimum Mastering handled the final pass.
Where More Fire (W12) held its tension without releasing it, and Lord Only Knows Pt.1 (W14) drew out the space between the notes, “My Old House” works with distance and absence. The lyric traces the feeling of being far from somewhere that still has a claim on you: four years gone, nothing left but traces, a voice reaching across the world and landing in the throat. Thorpe has a way of circling an image until it becomes physical, and the line about something pecking at the throat — repeated, let to hang — does that work quietly and without overstatement.
With the EP now days away, the picture Otala have built across these three singles is unusually coherent for a debut release. Each track has added something without explaining itself. I’ve been following this band since 2024 and “My Old House” confirms they’ve earned full attention.
