Angel Olsen – All Mirrors (2019)

The descent into darkness is a trope we find time again across history, literature and film. But there’s also an abyss above. There’s a winding white staircase that goes ever upward into the great unknown each step, each turn, requiring a greater boldness and confidence than the one before. This is the journey on which we find Angel Olsen. Olsen’s artistic beginnings as a collaborator shifted seamlessly to her magnificent, cryptic-to-cosmic solo work, and then she formed bands to play her songs, and her stages and audiences grew exponentially. But all along, Olsen was more concerned with a different kind of path, and on her vulnerable, Big Mood new album, All Mirrors, we can see her taking an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations.

Originally conceived as a double album, all mirrors and whole new mess were distinct parts of a larger whole, Twin stars that each expressed something bigger and bolder than Angel Olsen had ever made. Released in 2019, All mirrors is massive in scope and sound, tracing Olsen's ascent into the unknown, to a place of true self-acceptance, no matter how dark, or difficult, or seemingly lonely. All mirrors is colossal, moving, dramatic in an old Hollywood manner. Recorded before all mirrors but released after, whole new mess is the Bones and s of the songs that would rewrite Olsen's story. This is Angel Olsen in her classic style: stark solo performances, echoes and open spaces, her voice both whispered and enormous. All mirrors and whole new mess presented the two glorious extremes of an artist who, in these songs, became new by embracing herself entirely. Now, with songs of the lark… and other far memories, these Twin stars become a constellation with the full extent of the songs' Iterations: all the alternate takes, b-sides, remixes and reimaginings are here, together. Alongside, a 40-page book collection tells a similar story, not just through outtakes and unseen photos but through the smaller, evocative details: handwritten lyrics, a favorite Necklace, a beaded Chandelier. As if it could be more plainly stated (there's nothing more), Angel adds one cover here: a loving, assertive rendition of Roxy music's "more than this." it is a definitive collection, not just of these songs but of their revelations and their writer, from their simplest origins to their mightiest realization.

The descent into darkness is a trope we find time again across history, literature and film. But there’s also an abyss above. There’s a winding white staircase that goes ever upward into the great unknown — each step, each turn, requiring a greater boldness and confidence than the one before. This is the journey on which we find Angel Olsen. Olsen’s artistic beginnings as a collaborator shifted seamlessly to her magnificent, cryptic-to-cosmic solo work, and then she formed bands to play her songs, and her stages and audiences grew exponentially.

The time had come, Angel Olsen realized in the fading summer of 2018, to take her new songs out of the house. Olsen’s 2016 marvel, My Woman, had been a career breakthrough, but it catalyzed a period of personal tumult, too: a painful breakup, an uneasy recovery, an inadequate reckoning. At home in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Olsen penned songs that finally grappled with these troubles, particularly love - how forever is too much to promise, how relationships can lock us into static versions of ourselves, how you can go through hell just to make someone else happy.

Fresh grief, like fresh love, has a way of sharpening our vision and bringing on painful clarifications. No matter how temporary we know these states to be, the vulnerability and transformation they demand can overpower the strongest among us. Then there are the rare, fertile moments when both occur, when mourning and limerence heighten, complicate and explain each other; the songs that comprise Angel Olsen’s Big Time were forged in such a whiplash.

While spending time trying to conquer the audio of live-stream at-home performances, I got better acquainted with my friend Adam mcdaniel, an engineer and producer in asheville, NC. Adam and I had known each other for years. When the band was a bit smaller I'd often rent his studio, drop of Sun, for pre-recording/ pre tour rehearsals. Summer 2020 was tough for many reasons. But Adam and his wife Emily opened their home to me and made it a safe space to create and let go. I had an idea to record some covers and bring some of the band into the mix, or add other players. I wanted to record 80's songs that I'd overheard walking the aisles at the grocery store, and I needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general. I thought about completely changing some of the songs and turning them inside out. I'd heard "Gloria" By Laura branigan for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and I was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance.

Angel return with a 5 track EP of covers. It includes songs originally by Billy Idol, Laura Branigan, Men Without Hats, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and Alphaville.