If you’ve been keeping up with our Forecast Tape playlist, you’ve already heard Otracami on rotation. Now, the Brooklyn-based songwriter and composer, aka Camila Ortiz, is stepping into a bold new chapter with her upcoming album Runoff. Across its eleven tracks, Ortiz expands her sound into something looser, fuller, and more alive, layering intricate vocals, field recordings, and samples into rich band arrangements. The record captures a period of change, like leaving jobs, relationships, even old versions of herself, as well as the push-and-pull between freedom and responsibility. Drawing from her time in New York as well as her Northern California childhood, Runoff reflects that friction: smoother memories meeting sharper edges. It’s also her most collaborative work yet, created alongside a close-knit group of musicians who helped shape its lush, dynamic feel.
Yesterday, she shared “Sirens,” the album’s second single, along with a striking new video. Originally written for a gallery installation at Art Basel, the song takes inspiration from the myth of Persephone’s handmaidens—transformed into monsters after her abduction to the underworld. But what began as mythology quickly turned inward. “‘Sirens’ is the only song on the album that wasn’t written from my POV, but obviously whenever you write a song like that, it still ends up reflecting what’s happening for you,” Ortiz explains. “The song is about how much you owe somebody you work for—where the boundaries are when something bad happens. How much are you responsible for, and does it matter?” The atmospheric and thoughtful video, created with longtime collaborator Sai Tripathi, brings that eerie, mythic energy to life on a Los Angeles beach. Watch and listen below.
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