Ofri doesn’t really like bios.
In fact, it’s exactly this kind of self-aggrandising writing that the Sydney-based piano singer-songwriter would rather avoid altogether — something that’s obvious once you spend any amount of time with the direct and unashamedly candid rumination that consists her particular brand of chamber folk. Perhaps even more immediately noticeable than her frankness is her voice, a wild animal which can inhabit every spectra of expression, from raw emotionality to heartfelt delicacy with every shade in-between. It’s precisely that assured confidence — those idiosyncrasies of a voice well-worn — that imbues her songwriting with a richness and clarity of concept that elevates her art.
Lyrically speaking, Ofri spends more time than most on the floor. Across her 2024 debut album, "That Heavy Magnetism", terra firma is a recurrent image: the ground threatens to swallow her; gravity pulls her to rock bottom; her remains percolate into the soil; the ocean washes her ashore. By the end, her wings are cut, and she is left to drag a broken body over unforgiving terrain. As far as metaphors go, this one has proved fertile soil. Throughout "Magnetism", it evoked the experience of having the rip-roaring pace of your early 20s reduced to a crawl, of feeling cut-off at the knees, forced to pull yourself over root and snare with nothing but a pair of stubborn arms. But where "Magnetism" found Ofri indignant, resentful of the ground that caught her fall, 2026’s "Undergrowth" sees her making peace with this new habitat — digging through the dirt.
"Undergrowth" serves both as a postscript to the angst of "That Heavy Magnetism", rebuking its righteous anger with joyous resolution, and also as a prelude of things to come — once the roots find their purchase, the only place left to grow is further towards the light.
