“I had gone through this breakup, but it was so much bigger than that—I’d lost friendships, too. When you get out of a relationship, you have to examine who you are or were in all the relationships. I wanted to record when I was still processing these feelings. These are the personal takes, encapsulated in a moment.” - Angel Olsen
This week's feature album is Angel Olsen's Whole New Mess, her first solo release since her 2012 debut.
A super intimate and vulnerable emotional portrait that shows her grappling with a period of personal tumult, Whole New Mess presents Olsen working through her open wounds and raw nerves with just a few guitars and some microphones, isolated in a century-old church in the Pacific Northwest.
Whole New Mess follows All Mirrors, Olsen’s grand 2019 masterpiece (and a top 10 critically acclaimed record). At least nine of the eleven songs on Whole New Mess should sound familiar to anyone who has heard All Mirrors. 'Lark', 'Summer', 'Chance' - they are all here, at least in some skeletal form and with slightly different titles. But these are not the demos for All Mirrors. Instead, Whole New Mess is its own record with its own immovable mood. If the lavish orchestral arrangements and cinematic scope of All Mirrors are the sound of Olsen preparing her scars for the wider world to see, Whole New Mess is the sound of her first figuring out their shape, making sense for herself of these injuries.
Considered alongside All Mirrors, Whole New Mess is a poignant and pointed reminder that songs are more than mere collections of words, chords, and even melodies. They are webs of moods and moments and ideas, qualities that can change from one month to the next and can say just as much as the perfect progression or an exquisite chord. In that sense, these 11 songs - solitary, frank, and unflinching examinations of what it’s like to love, lose, and survive - are entirely new. This is the sound of Angel Olsen, sorting through the kind of trouble we’ve all known, as if just for herself and whoever else needs it.
Whole New Mess is out now via Inertia Music.
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
Smarts - 'Cling Wrap'
Zombeaches - 'Cheers To The Future'
Komang - 'Dewi'
Jamila Woods - 'SULA (Paperback)'
Mark Grusane - 'A New Day'
Yawning Man - 'The Last Summer Eye'
Vic Bang - 'Tam Tam'
Alejandro Escovedo - 'Teenage Luggage'
NO ZU - 'Talking To A Stranger'
