Australian multi-hyphenate artist and musician VITA isn’t just giving us a peek behind the curtain at her revolutionary Saturn Return; she’s putting it on blast. And that’s sort of the point. Her upcoming album, Opia, strips harsh truths of their power by saying them out loud, with radical self-acceptance as the central theme. VITA has a past that isn’t going away, and instead of shying away from it, she faces it with unflinching vigor that bleeds into her confrontational and candid music and lyrics. Opia refers to the intensity of looking someone in the eye, and that’s precisely what VITA needed to do with herself to create this self-analytical album. She hopes her album leaves listeners with a core question: “When you look at yourself, why are you so scared to be seen?” 

VITA’s latest single, funnily enough called “Single,” comes out on 8/28, and from the beginning to the end, VITA denounces singular love, clinging to a reframe that is much more open and unbiased. “Single” opens like a gut punch, with punchy, garish club/techno elements. The song spaces out through instrumental sections, with dramatic pauses and beat drops that beg you to let loose, doubling down on the track’s message to expand your definition of love. “I want to experience all the love there is in this life without reserving romance as a concept only for a partner. People come into my life and continuously redefine my standards and ideas surrounding love, and no one experience is more valuable than the other,” VITA shares. “I wanted something that felt big, that wasn’t constrained to a structure and that took you on a journey. It reflects a lot of the feeling of falling in love, the excitement, the anticipation, and the uncertainty that lives within that.” 

Visually, VITA is a mastermind, constructing avant-garde looks that exist outside the realm of typical fashion. She loves theatre and camp, mentioning The Red Shoes and Rocky Horror Picture Show, as well as artists like Tyler, The Creator and FKA Twigs for their on-point visual representations of their music. For Opia, VITA serves clown couture, leaning into Peter Pan and the pirates in Neverland. She finds joy in disguising herself to an almost unrecognizable point and shares that she’s always scrolling, pinning, and saving clips and pictures, her gears always turning toward how she can keep building the Vita universe. 

One of VITA’s most prized visual components in her upcoming album is Harold the mechanical horse, coveted from Facebook Marketplace. Vita shares that there’s an Aussie saying: “Fuck you and the horse you came in on,” and even though it’s a funny, crass way of saying “get lost,” VITA can’t help but see herself in the horse. She’s the horse, she’s the reason, she’s who got her to where she is today, and she’s accountable. 

VITA plans to wow her fans with a few more singles before Opia drops in full. Beyond the heavy dance and electronic influence, we can also expect more intimate, stripped-down tracks like “WHATDOESTHATSAYABOUTME,” which Vita teases as the antithesis of the album.