Artist: ANGEL OLSEN
(born Angelina Maria Carroll 35 years ago) Who: Singer-songwriter from Chicago with a
golden voice, so far she made 5 studio albums
Active: Since 2009 / 6 studio LPs (new one included)
New Album: BIG TIME Release: 3 June 2022 – more info here
“The album was written during the time Olsen was coming out as
queer, and having her first experience of queer love and heartbreak.
At the same time, she finally came out to her parents.”
Olsen: “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me.”
NME‘s verdict: “Angel Olsen’s sixth album turns a period of intense emotion into an assured, Americana-flecked triumph… Angel Olsen must have experienced an intense mix of emotions during the creation of her sixth studio album ‘Big Time’. In the months after she came out as gay to her parents, both of them died; she started recording three weeks after her mother’s funeral. Around the same time, she experienced the freedom of her first queer relationship, and the pain of her first queer heartbreak… In keeping with that personal tumult (and, indeed, the record’s title), ‘Big Time’ is a record of huge emotional range. There is bold drama and there are deep and tender stretches of dark introspection.” Score: 4/5.
Turn Up The Volume: Melodrama at its goosebumps best. Big Time is an intimate Americana-country masterwork. Very personal, both sad and romantic, sepia-colored and her angelic voice once again as the heroine. This minimally orchestrated diamond has a timeless human feel with echoes of country stars such as Dolly Parton, Tammy Waynette, Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. Music for the midnight candle hours for grief-stricken hearts and lost souls.
Singles/clips: All The Good Times / Big Time
– ALL THE GOOD TIMES –
Most gripping love ballad
I heard in years
Starry-eyed voice ANGEL OLSEN has her sixth LP, named Big Time, out next June.
I lost track of how many times I heard her new tearjerker single since it was released
a couple of weeks ago. ALL THE GOOD TIMES is about Olsen’s heart being broken by
a lover.
Disco-freak stomper of the month, hands down. This new punky-funky corker follows
the previous 2 shared crackers Wild Flowers and Fatso. They will all be on their upcoming album At the Hot Spot, out tomorrow, 1 April (no joke).
It’s a bangin’ beast with a screamin’ chorus. A perfect pick-me-up tune for all the weirdos
who are always in the kitchen at parties waiting for Warmduscher to kick their lazy asses.
Compared to this Japanese red-hot-bloody fury the Ramones sound like choirboys. Otobeke Beaver‘s race and rush in an overwhelming overdrive. No brakes, no breaks.
Their rabidity rolls like a tsunami through your ears. These perky punkettes produce
moshpit madness on the spot. The average song length is 2 minutes, 120 seconds
of clamorous pandemonium.
3. ‘Territorial Call Of The Female’ by BODEGA (Brooklyn, NY)
The New Yorkers still operate on Parquet Courts’ playground with their new,
2nd full-length Broken Equipment. But they supersized their jangly beats
and they turned up the temperature.
Territorial Call Of The Female is my favorite cut. It activates
every muscle and every nerve in my itching body.
Scott Kirkland (the remaining member of Las Vegas dance act The Crystal Method)
invited icon Iggy Pop (you can hear him almost any day on a new collaboration, the
past few years) and his British buddy, composer/DJ Hyper in his studio.
The raving result is a techno boom boost, bursting all the way, with Pop‘s voice
strangled by a blender. Sounds spooky, sounds wicked, sounds like lust for life.
Breaking news: Iggy says he’s not a punk anymore!
“I don’t want to be a punk
I don’t want to belong to any of it
I just want to be”
Busy blues-rock bee Jack White canned two new longplayers for this year, titled Fear Of The Dawn (out 8 April 2022) and Entering Heaven Alive (out 22 July 2022)
The hottest cut I heard so far is Hi-De-Ho (from ‘Fear Of The Dawn’ LP) featuring Q.Tip.
The by now legendary passion rockers from Cincinnati, Ohio with mastermind
Greg Dulli in control are back from being away for 5 years. Their last album In Spades came out in 2017.
I’ll Make You See God a striking steamroller, a red-hot-heated stunner, an unstoppable
cannonball going everywhere fast. It will feature in the upcoming PlayStation game Gran Turismo 7.
7. ‘Nothing Comes Good Easy’ by DEAD LEVEE (Canada)
Wowzer! This sickly uplifting belter (from upcoming EP Rise-Up) elevates your state of mind with fired-up dynamism from the get-go. Rapid-fire rawk and roll riffs switch on a fervent feel of euphoria. It did it in the past, it does it in the present and it will do it in
the future.
Despite all the BS we have to endure (pandemic, Ukraine, natural disasters,
and other threats) it’s never too late to get back on track and why not start
with 4 and a half minutes of heart-warming guitar-fueled boogie-woogie
that breathes hope and assurance.
Once I learned that this startling uppercut is about the horrible
exploitation of human beings by ferocious money sharks this
jagged jackhammer blew my mind even harder than I heard it
the first time before knowing about the band’s inspiration
for this standout.
Expect rabid guitars, doom and gloom vocals, and frantic twists and turns
until the chaotic finale. Post-punk at its razorblade best. Think fierce Canadian
turbine Metz and London‘s up-and-coming gunslingers Crows.
This fiery crackerjack goes forth and back with
turbulent velocity. Imagine the full of vim and vigor
intenseness and puissant vocality of The Afghan Whigs.
Anxious, unyielding, and ablaze.
Breaking Grounds races like a rush of blood to the head with
screaming guitars and propelling drum muscularity.
The first taster from the upcoming debut full-length Dancing On A Volcano.
Imagine the fervid fuzz of punchy guitar pop legends Buzzcocks, with The Stranglers’ Jean-Jacques Burnel on bass, combined with the cutting
verbality of today’s post-Brexit-punk rebirth and you know a frisky doozy
is coming your way.
Add some American-dream girls of the City of Angles on your imaginary
mind-screen and you’re about to start a champagne party in your head.
The combination of a nasty Gang Of Four bass riff,
frenzied Keith Levene guitars here and there and Skinner
hip-hop-rapping like Beck used to do, works like an ecstatic
upper.
This funk-punk stonker has an immediate intensifying impact on all of your
limbs and your bloodstream’s flow. Add some sexy sax thrills to the mix and
you’ll have all you need to jump out of your slump. Capice?
Cut from their sophomore album
‘Moon Reflections’, out on June 24
A rotating synth riff echoes British electro legends New Order and
is the beating heart of this new piece, yet the mood is meditative
and musing, strengthened by the near-whispering and eager vocals.
This darksome and soul-searching reverie gets under your skin after
a couple of spins.
This impassioned hard-luck story grows slowly but surely into a soul-stirring and mesmerising heartbreaker with an epic finale. Glowing guitars, a steady drumbeat,
and mixed emotions vocals all come together for a poignant performance.
‘Love Is Cruel / The Hurt Within’. You can feel it.
You’ll hear titillating electro-echoes of early Depeche Mode before
they became the darkwave Goth-esque rockers we all know. But
in an eye-blink White Skin becomes an infectious nightclub earworm
with an ecstatic chorus.
In a normal world (does that actually exists?) this adrenaline-infused
and hip-swinging spark should top the dance charts around the globe.
The musical project of singer/songwriter Jordan Speare
assisted by guitarist/bassist and friend Andrew Billone.
After a couple of EPs the pair’s canned their first longplayer
called Silhouettes. Release at the end of the year.
I don’t know if it’s the world-famous and historic museum in Paris
they want to burn, that wouldn’t be so nice. What I do know is that their
brisk and spirited sound is infectious and captivating with an immediate
impact on your body’s movements. Expect guitar pop electricity, extra
pushed by lively vocals.
16. ‘Life And Lies’ by LEE ROGERS (Northern Ireland)
The Americana voice of Northern Ireland releases
his new album Gamebloodon 13 May.
Ahead of it came this mixed emotions single with Rogers‘ sky-reaching voice as the star, once again.
It’s a bluesy goosebumps reflection. Wurlitzer jukeboxes should be reinvented
for these heartbreakers so moody minds can cry their eyes out (or cry in their beer)
at night in a downtown bar where lonely ones gather and chat about life and lies.
A poppy synth trip with a floating flow and near-whispering vocals. Both eerie and affecting, both dizzy and hypnotic with a frenetic guitar attack coming out of nowhere around the 3-minute mark.
It’s an epic ballad with a country feel. If this melancholic gem was written
in the 60s it would have been sung by Linda Rondstadt, Tammy Waynette
or Dolly Parton, anyway, by an angelic voice like Olsen‘s magnific one.
Artist: ANGEL OLSEN
(born Angelina Maria Carroll 35 years ago) Who: Singer-songwriter from Chicago with a
golden voice, so far she made 5 studio albums Active: Since 2009 / 6 studio LPs (new one included)
New Album: BIG TIME Release: 3 June 2022 – more info here
“The album was written during the time Olsen was coming out as
queer, and having her first experience of queer love and heartbreak.
At the same time, she finally came out to her parents. “
Olsen: “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me.”
It’s an epic ballad with a country feel. If this melancholic gem was written
in the 60s it would have been sung by Linda Rondstadt, Tammy Waynette
or Dolly Parton, anyway, by an angelic voice like Olsen‘s magnific one.
I can’t say that I’m sorry when I don’t feel so wrong anymore
I can’t tell you I’m tryin’ when there’s nothin’ left here to try for
And I don’t know how it happened
We’ve both abandon the reason we used to believe
Was it love that we shared
When we easily cared?
Now it’s impossible to conceive
Artist: ANGEL OLSEN Who: Singer-songwriter from Chicago with a
golden voice, so far she made 5 studio albums
New EP: AISLES
Five covers of 80s hits Released: 20 August 2021
Olsen picked 5 feel-good electro-pop hits from the eighties,
slowed them down, drenched them in a dream-synth bath,
and let her golden voice glide all over it.
