Dja Dja Wurrung Country/Castlemaine-based multi-award-winning songwriter, musician, advocate and writer Eliza Hull (she/her) – who received an Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) last month for her contribution to music and disability advocacy, further cementing her reputation as one of Australia’s most important voices across both culture and accessibility – today shares her first official new music in 3 years: Hotel Room, her “most unguarded” single yet, an utterly vulnerable and unapologetically sensuous alt-pop self-excavation tracing Hull’s emotional journey through womanhood while “feeling completely lost… moving toward midlife [and] becoming undone – questioning everything, wanting more, wanting less, changing shape in real time”. Written during a personal breakdown while Hull was alone in a London hotel room, the song explores womanhood, identity, intimacy and emotional unravelling, landing alongside an equally intimate video directed by Keiran Watson-Bonnice (You Am I, ABC’s And Then Something Changed) exploring sensual expression, her most liberating visual work yet. Hotel Room marks a bold and emotionally expansive new era from one of the continent’s most compelling artists.
Eliza Hull peels everything back on Hotel Room to capture a private moment of complete unravelling with rawness and sensuality, exploring the “messy in-between place” she – like many women – feels moving toward midlife. Recorded at London’s Knight Time Studios with producer James Knight (The Kooks, Feist, Ainslie Wills) and mixed by trusted collaborator ARIA Award-winning Pip Norman (Missy Higgins, Baker Boy), written during “a breakdown” in a London hotel room reflecting that quiet, tense space where there’s nowhere left to hide from your thoughts and it all cracks open, the track spirals through self-reckoning through brutally honest lyrics that see Hull searching passionately for connection with a grounded version of herself after “feeling completely lost”. Hotel Room crackles with vulnerability, the sounds of London traffic providing a grounding backdrop, featuring Eliza Hull on sparse piano and Knight on sensually luxuriant sax atop a minimalist beat that allows Hull’s vocals, emotions and message to take centre stage – quietly dejected in the track’s verses, viscerally desperate in its aching chorus – pushing the artist’s acclaimed songwriting into powerful new territory.
Of the single, Eliza Hull says: “‘Hotel Room’ is probably one of the most vulnerable songs I’ve ever written, me at my most exposed and unguarded – like you’ve accidentally walked into this London hotel room and I’m still in the middle of figuring something out. I travelled to the UK, where I wrote with 12 songwriters in 14 days – which, looking back now, was completely wild, I was exhausted and had a breakdown. As a mother and at this stage of my life, I feel more driven than ever to express myself honestly: we rarely hear stories or songs about women moving toward midlife – especially women who are unraveling, becoming undone, questioning everything, wanting more, wanting less, changing shape in real time. There’s still this expectation that women should either remain desirable, composed and certain, or quietly disappear. I’m interested in the messier in-between place. The strange, tender, human parts we don’t often sing about out loud. It feels important to explore that honestly. ‘Hotel Room’ isn’t a story about waiting to be rescued by someone else – it’s about trying to reconnect with your own inner self after feeling completely lost. I’m overseas, alone in a hotel room, spiralling through this reckoning with myself. The person I’m searching for isn’t somebody else – it’s me. The version that feels centred and whole. Recording in London with producer James Knight, the whole thing came together in this intense, electric rush. We only had half a day together, I arrived with just the bare bones of the song. James works so instinctively – every idea felt immediate, alive, and emotionally charged – which perfectly matched what the song was trying to say. That idea became the heart of the music video.”
The track’s video carries significant power in representing differences of expression of body and sexuality. Directed by another trusted collaborator, Keiran Watson-Bonnice (You Am I, ABC’s And Then Something Changed), who previously directed the clip for Hull’s 2023 single Running Underwater which ignited important discussions around disability representation in music, the Hotel Room clip first sees Hull in a lonely hotel room that blurs and obscures in sultry textures – eventually returning home to crawl into bed and embrace another version of herself created by a visual effects artist.
Eliza Hull explains, “I feel really proud of the ‘Hotel Room’ clip, I was lucky to work with Keiran Watson-Bonnice as the director, we made the film clip for ‘Running Underwater’ together, and I needed someone that I completely trust. He has a beautiful instinct. We don’t often see that kind of expression of body and sexuality, a woman being expressed through a lens of somebody who does move differently. I’m really trying to push myself and potentially surprise people, because I’ve never done anything like that before. I loved working with a visual effects artist to create two versions of myself – I wanted the ending to feel powerful and unexpected.”
Hotel Room IS OUT NOW – LISTEN HERE
With thanks to Special Interest
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