ANGEL OLSEN
From existential folk minimalism to rich pop experiment, Danny Eccleston meets the many faces of the rising Missouri star.
Not long ago, angel olsen had a dream that she found unaccountably upsetting. “It was like a David lynch film,” she says. “so ordinary but so intense. I was in a 7-eleven and the woman on the till looked right at me. Stared at me. It was really disturbing. she didn’t look like me but she was me.” olsen woke up terrified and fascinated, and the dream stayed with her. “I keep wondering, why was it so hard to face myself?” Her big eyes widen below her jet black, spirit-level fringe. It’s the kind of question olsen likes to ask herself: about what makes humans tick. she’s a devotee of Us philosophy and pop science podcast Radiolab, and though her songs aren’t science-y they are forensic, cutting through received sentimentality to reveal the complex equations of need that we call relationships. one of them, enemy, off her 2014 album Burn Your Fire For No Witness, is about how everyone around us has a hidden agenda, even if they don’t know it themselves. “It’s kind of a sad song, I guess,” she concedes. “People are always asking me to sing it, and I’m like, no, no, no, no. Maybe later.” Four albums into a five-year stretch as a dedicated solo recording artist, olsen is already slightly war y of the demands made on her by fans. “I’ve had people tell me stuff like, ‘I
almost died’,” she frets. “It can be very heavy. I feel like a therapist sometimes. It makes me think, What did I write that made them act like that?” Olsen will have to expect rather more of this. With her new album, My Woman, her most rich and assured so far – and less anchored in indie or retro-roots sub-genres – her potential audience is expanding. Plenty of scope for misinterpretation. “What I’ve learned is that everything you do as an artist is bold,” she says, boldly. “You’re making a statement even if you’re not intending to. And there are consequences to that, in terms of the way people see you. And that’s part of what makes this exciting. You’re playing with the way people think.”
n A grIm June dAY In LOndOn, Angel Olsen – 29, from St Louis via Chicago and Asheville, north Carolina – is perched on a bench seat at the Wellcome Collection, an exhibition venue with a medical/humanbiology theme. Outside, it’s raining stair-rods. Inside, a multimedia happening explores the development of the human voice, from simple purveyor of warning howls and grunts of recognition to a sophisticated communication-machine capable of infinite nuance. It’s right up Olsen’s alley. “even when I was a kid, I was into recording my voice,” she says. “I had this hand-held Panasonic tape recorder and I would take it into the bathroom because it had really nice acoustics. I was thinking, At some point my voice is gonna change and it’s gonna be a woman’s voice and I can’t wait for that to happen.” Adopted at the age of three by parents old enough to be grandparents, Olsen grew up with The everly Brothers and Skeeter davis – the popular culture of a distant generation. It’s left her with something of an old soul (not to mention a vintage wardrobe), and when she sings folk and country she sounds natural – with none of the warbly affectations of the neo-old-timey set. “growing up adopted hasn’t been so bad,” she shrugs. “I wouldn’t change it if I could. I have met other people in my situation and we’ve agreed that we are aliens. You know a fellow alien when you meet one.” As an adolescent, she obsessed on pop – mariah Carey and Whitney Houston; later: Björk and Yo La Tengo – and learned piano, but found that lessons amplified incipient angsts. “I had a piano teacher who was extremely religious and very strict about how my hands looked,” she says. “I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. I was embarrassed when I turned up and watched the students leaving because they all looked super nice in skirts and Oxford shirts. She’d make me scrub my hands clean in her perfect bathroom with her perfect soap.” Piano lessons ditched, she took up the guitar, forming a group called The good Fight with school friends (they were influenced by no doubt – Olsen jumped around like gwen Stefani) that supported college bands at “super-sketchy” St Louis clubs like The Creepy Crawl. Later she moved to Chicago, finding work and musical connections and coming to the attention of Will Oldham, beginning a long stint on the road with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and The Cairo gang (featuring sometime boyfriend emmett Kelly), singing duets and indulging Old-
ham’s sartorial whims, like the jumpsuits he made them all wear when they opened their own shows as The Babblers, playing Kevin Coyne and Dagmar Krause covers. On-stage, their chemistry was “superpowerful”. Off-stage, there was a disconnect. “A lot of the time I felt… mute. It was understood that you keep your thoughts to yourself. Your opinions were irrelevant. Be respectful to the main artist. Talking to them might affect them in some adverse way. I had to walk on eggshells and perform as if I wasn’t.” Olsen learned to appreciate the pressures Oldham was under – why odd things upset him – and to value his integrity and determination. “The tables have turned,” she says. “Now I feel the pressures, and I see people walking on eggshells around me, and me being particular and coming off like a prima donna. I see myself in his shoes in some ways.”
AFTER ONE Of OLSEN’s GHOSTLY, NO-FI DEMOS was heard by Bathetic records’ Jon hency, she had a song (Your Train, my home) included on a label compilation. since then, her musical development has been dramatic – each record demonstrably the product of the same intelligence but more melodic, sophisticated and resonant than the last. 2014’s slow--
burning single hi-five and its moody yet knowing video turned heads, but in interviews she was already over its grungy sonics and
looking forward to mixing things up. surprising herself more than anyone, the first two songs she wrote for My Woman were Intern, a wr y, economical pop song built around a quizzical synth line, and
Pops, a broke-down parlour ballad based on a piano instrumen- tal she recorded as an experiment. “suddenly I was wondering, Is this gonna be the record?” she says. “me on synth and piano? Will it sound like Tori Amos?”
On something of a punt, Olsen enlisted input from Justin raisen, a maverick songwriter/producer from long Island whose CV includes collaborations with sky ferreira, Kylie minogue and Charli XCX. Olsen’s well aware how this might sit with the organic rock diehards who’ve stuck by her so far. even her band weren’t sure what to make of raisen and his Adidas tracksuits. mixing old and new methodologies, they recorded live to analogue tape, and everyone bonded. “I ended up feeling really strongly about everyone,” says Olsen. “At the end of it I wanted to call the engineer and say, let’s get a drink! I want to hang out and talk about your life!” spending an hour or two with the sparky Olsen, it’s hard not to be swayed by her enthusiasms: novelists lawrence Durrell and elena ferrante, sea otters. But behind the effusive charm, she’s bolstering her defences. At one point, mOJO asks her what makes her angr y and she replies, with a smile, “Do you really want me to tell the masses what makes me angry, so they can make me angry?” Perhaps she’s wise to be cautious. scratch a fan and there’s a potential troll, or jailer. “I’m trying to reach people. make an impact,” she declares. “But I’m aware that with my music I could be creating kind of a curse, or at least a structure that I have to live in and has the potential to limit me. so when I create more things I’m going to try to change that structure or break it open.” Olsen sounds demanding, of herself and those around her, but experience has also taught her to try, at least, to incline towards lenience. “I learned that I have to judge pop stars a little less,” she smiles. “You don’t know what they’re going through, y’know? We’re all human. Pop stars are human too.”