What should we listen to this week, Robert?
†Big Time (★★★★☆) by Angel Olsen. A fucking beautiful album, I think. Olsen comes from the indie art-pop corner, but this is really a country album. You hear a steel guitar, mellotron, and the occasional strings. Angel Olsen was adopted as a child by a slightly older couple – there was an age difference of about 40 years between her and her parents. As a child, she had an excessive interest in what it was like for her parents to be young in the 1950s and 60s. You hear that: it is a nostalgic, orchestral country record.
‘It’s also a coming-out album. Olsen identifies as gay and struggled to tell her mother before she died. She has packaged both the death of her parents and that ambiguous feeling very nicely in her songs. on Big Time you hear a lot of pain, a lot of mourning from saying goodbye, and at the same time the struggle of her coming out. She’s put it together beautifully – you can tell she’s starting a new life by saying goodbye to her parents.
But the best thing about this album is perhaps the short film which she made with it, in which she plays the three most important songs of Big Time connects. The film has been online since today – highly recommended. As if she is dreaming and we can watch it. Moving, and visually very strong. In any case, such a film is a nice way to share your work with your audience. You immediately understand the whole concept of the album, you see what has been on her mind.’
And you wanted to discuss another dreamy album; that of Shark.
‘Both albums sound like they came to you overnight through a dream. Mystical, personal, often hypnotic. Even though they are two completely different genres, these two records have a shared feeling. Haai left Australia for London, where she worked as a guitarist and songwriter for a psychedelic rock band. That went completely wrong, and she decided to play records in underground clubs. Baby. We’re Ascending (★★★☆☆, but actually ★★★★☆) is her first dance album as a producer.
‘I actually regret my review: it should have had a star. After the piece was published, I turned the album up a few more times, and I thought: shit, it’s better than what I thought then. Very nicely produced, daring, and sometimes a bit nervous. But they are compelling and beautifully developed tracks, in which something is constantly happening. You will hear a development with every size. That’s what I like about dance: it’s almost composed music, almost symphonic. For example, listen to the song FM† there you really get dragged through the entire track by your hair. You are completely absorbed in it, as if you are in a trance. Very well done.’
AND THIS IS ALSO WORTH LISTENING:
‘An addictive highlight in the current jazz offer’, is how reviewer Gijsbert Kamer calls the new album In the Spirit of NTU (★★★★★) by Nduduzo Makhathini. It includes gripping blues, impressive staccato melodies, and compositions in which blues, soul and jazz with South African funk rhythms enter into a deep spiritual union. ‘It can be called a resounding success’, says Gijsbert.
If you haven’t heard enough dreaminess this week, you can visit the four Rotterdam band members of Elephant. on their album Big Thing (★★★★☆) you are immediately enchanted by the beautiful harmony singing in Calling, writes Gijsbert. ‘In half an hour Elephant takes you to pleasantly dreamy atmospheres in which it is wonderful to wallow.’ A ‘wonderful album’ full of guitar songs, for the fans.