Odd Beholder — Like A Chore

Odd Beholder, the electro wave/indie pop project by Swiss musician Daniela Weinmann, announces its fourth album, Honest Work, and releases the single "Like A Chore" on January 16th, 2026!

About the single “Like A Chore”

This flowing electronica track follows the perspective of a person who is trying to be there for their child while also having to work. The song tells of the difficulty of not being able to explain to the child why they have to get dressed right away, for example, or why there is no time for their joys and fears. They have no concept of the adult world yet and experience their parents' practical, necessary decisions as rejection.

‘Can't tell you what it's for / I fear that you feel like a chore,’ the lyrics ponder. What if the child only sees themselves as a tiresome obstacle in their parents' busy day? Later, the perspective shifts:

"You wonder why you're quick to lose your temper / When you are overwhelmed 
And as a child, you just can't quite remember / If you were ever held“

The song asks whether the adult might feel overwhelmed by the child and their feelings because they themselves experienced little patience as a child.

‘Like A Chore’ does not seek to answer these questions, nor does it offer suggestions on what good parenting should look like or how work and family can be reconciled – the song allows us to empathise with the conflicts parents struggle with in their working lives and the enormous responsibility they bear, fraught with ethical dilemmas.

Odd Beholder says:

"The idea for this song came to me when I was still working as a teacher to finance my music. An image burned itself into my mind that touched me deeply. I saw a young mother standing in the staff room after only three months of the statutory maternity leave we have in Switzerland. Visibly tired and exhausted, she pumped breast milk in a bare back room and then put it in the fridge. I found this image of the young woman with that pump attached to her breast heartbreaking. Despite the strain of giving birth and the initial period of adjusting to her new life as a mother, she had to do the same demanding job that we all had to do. I would have liked her to be able to spend more time with her baby and for our society to allow her and her young family more time. I dedicate this song to her and to everyone in the same situation."

About the album “Honest Work”

On the new concept album Honest Work, ten songs tell stories from the adult lives of working people in the middle and lower classes. They work night shifts in hospitals, pump breast milk in storage rooms, wonder whether they should get a prescription for Ritalin, are summoned to the boss’s office for wearing the wrong clothes, or take a day off just to walk barefoot by a lake.

Lyrically, Honest Work can best be described as “petty-bourgeois surrealism.” It’s an album about people trying – and often failing – to navigate systems that reduce them to anonymous data points, employees, and consumers. The album is full of desperate prayers: “Doctor, I think that I’ve got a disease” (Focus Disease), “Taking a day off… don’t even remember my own name” (Remind Me), “I serenade on company time” (Lean Dreams). In these lines, you can feel the dull ache of a generation whose emotional lives are filtered through corporate HR language and online shopping carts.

Honest Work will be released on May 22, 2026.