Album of the Week: Angel Olsen

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Album of the Week: Angel Olsen

Plus Stream the New Albums from DIIV, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Wilco, Chromatics, that dog., Lightning Dust, and Danny Brown

Oct 04, 2019 By Christopher Roberts Photography by Cameron McCool Chromatics

Angel Olsen released a new album, All Mirrors, today via Jagjaguwar and it’s our Album of the Week. Find more info on the album below. Below that are streams of other notable albums released today: DIIV, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Wilco, Chromatics, that dog., Lightning Dust, and Danny Brown. Don’t forget that Olsen is on the cover of our new print issue, the My Favorite Album Issue (you can buy a copy directly from us here).

Angel Olsen: All Mirrors (Jagjaguwar)

Olsen purposefully recorded two versions of All Mirrors, starting with a stripped down solo version recorded with producer Michael Harris in Anacortes, Washington. Then she recorded another, full band, version with producer John Congleton (who produced Olsen’s 2014 album Burn Your Fire for No Witness), alongside arranger Jherek Bischoff, multi-instrumentalist/arranger/pre-producer Ben Babbitt, and a 14-piece orchestra. Originally Olsen’s plan was to release both versions of the album at the same time, but then, as she stated in a previous press release, she decided she “needed to separate these two records and release All Mirrors in its heaviest form…. It was impossible for me to deny how powerful and surprising the songs had become. The truth is that I may have never allowed this much sonic change in the first place had I not already made an account of the same songs in their purest form.”

On Wednesday we posted Stephen Axeman’s rave 9/10 review of All Mirrors and you can read that here. Here is an excerpt from the review:

“The album’s songs progress with clear, linear movement even as the songs fill in the peripheries with ornate swells and accidentals that enrich the motion. On ‘New Love Cassette’ the bass descends languorously, with the warmly plodding drive of someone descending a staircase to get water after having been woken. The hook on ‘Too Easy’ could be from an of Montreal track, and on ‘Tonight,’ Olsen sounds as if she has been cast as a cabaret performer in a new David Lynch movie. The album is an extended meditation on the vagaries of fortune through regeneration, but for the listener, the experience is pure bliss.”

Of the title track and the album title, Olsen had this to say in the previous press release: “I chose this one as the title because I liked the theme: the theme of how we are all mirrors to and for each other. Even if that is not all of it, there is always an element of projection in what we’d like to see in people and scenarios and in the way we see ourselves in those scenarios, with those people.”

Summing up the album in the press release, Olsen had this to say: “In every way - from the making of it, to the words, to how I feel moving forward, this record is about owning up to your darkest side, finding the capacity for new love and trusting change even when you feel like a stranger.”

The press release describes the album this way: “On her vulnerable new album, All Mirrors, Olsen takes an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations. In the process of making this album, she found a new sound and voice, a blast of fury mixed with hard won self-acceptance. All Mirrors gets its claws into you on both micro and macro levels. Of course, there’s that singular vibrato, always so very close - seemingly simple, cooed phrases expand into massive ideas about the inability to love and universal loneliness. And then suddenly - huge string arrangements and bellowing synth swells emerge, propelling the apocalyptic tenor.”

Previously Olsen shared a haunting black & white video for its title track, “All Mirrors,” which was #1 on our Songs of the Week list. Then she shared the album’s second single, “Lark,” also via a video (surely one of the best music videos of the year). “Lark” was also our #1 Song of the Week. Ashley Connor directed both videos. Last night she stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform “All Mirrors.” She was aided by a string section for a stunning (a word we’ve been using a lot with Olsen lately) performance.

A limited edition and exclusive All Mirrors bundle from Jagjaguwar has the album on opaque aquamarine vinyl and includes a 7-inch for “All Mirrors” on silver with black splatter vinyl that includes the album version of “All Mirrors” on one side and a solo version titled “We Are All Mirrors” on the other side.

Olsen’s previous full-length album was 2016’s MY WOMAN, also via Jagjaguwar. It made it to #3 on Under the Radar’s Top 100 Albums of 2016 list. In 2017 she released Phases, a collection of B-sides, rarities, and demos, including some previously unreleased tracks. It was our Album of the Week.

In June Olsen was the guest vocalist on “True Blue,” a song on Mark Ronson‘s new album, Late Night Feelings. Olsen also wrote the song, which was #2 on our Songs of the Week list.

Read our 2016 interview with Olsen.

Angel Olsen Tour Dates:

Mon. Oct. 28 - Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom &
Wed. Oct. 30 - Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Lanes *
Thu. Oct. 31 - Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music Hall *
Fri. Nov. 1 - Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre *
Mon. Nov. 4 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse *
Tue. Nov. 5 - New Orleans, LA @ Civic Theatre *
Thu. Nov. 7 - Austin, TX @ Stubb’s (Levitation) *
Fri. Nov. 8 - Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater *
Sat. Nov. 9 - Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion *
Sun. Nov. 10 - Lawrence, KS @ The Granada *
Tue. Nov. 12 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue *
Wed. Nov. 13 - Madison, WI @ The Sylvee *
Thu. Nov. 14 - Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre *
Fri. Nov. 15 - Detroit, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre *
Sat. Nov. 16 - Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre *
Mon. Nov. 18 - Montreal, QC @ mTelus *
Tue. Nov. 19 - Boston, MA @ Royale *
Thu. Nov. 21 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel !
Fri. Nov. 22 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
Sat. Nov. 23 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^
Mon. Dec. 2 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren *
Tue. Dec. 3 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park *
Thu. Dec. 5 - Los Angeles, CA @ Palace Theater *
Fri. Dec. 6 - Los Angeles, CA @ Palace Theater #
Sat. Dec. 7 - Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater *
Mon. Dec. 9 - Portland, OR @ Roseland *
Tue. Dec. 10 - Vancouver, BC @ The Orpheum Theatre *
Wed. Dec. 11 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre *
Fri. Dec. 13 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot *
Sat. Dec. 14 - Denver, CO @ The Gothic Theatre *
Sun. Dec. 15 - Denver, CO @ The Gothic Theatre *
Wed. Jan. 22 - Lisbon, PT @ Capitólio %
Thu. Jan. 23 - Lisbon, PT @ Capitólio %
Fri. Jan. 24 - Porto, PT @ Hard Club %
Sat. Jan. 25 - Madrid, ES @ Sala BUT %
Sat. Jan. 26 - Barcelona, ES @ Sala Razzmatazz %
Tue. Jan. 28 - Geneva, CH @ Festival Antigel
Wed. Jan. 29 - Munich, DE @ Kammerspiele %
Thu. Jan. 30 - Berlin, DE @ Huxleys Neue Welt %
Fri. Jan. 31 - Copenhagen, DK @ Vega %
Sat. Feb. 1 - Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller %
Mon. Feb. 3 - Stockholm, SE @ Vasateatern %
Tue. Feb. 4 - Gothenburg, SE @ Pustervik %
Wed. Feb. 5 - Hamburg, DE @ Gruenspan %
Thu. Feb. 6 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso %
Fri. Feb. 7 - Antwerp, BE @ De Roma %
Sat. Feb. 8 - Paris, FR @ La Cigale %
Mon. Feb. 10 - Bristol, UK @ SWX %
Tue. Feb. 11 - London, UK @ Eventim Apollo %
Thu. Feb. 13 - Manchester, UK @ O2 Ritz %
Fri. Feb. 14 - Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom %

* = w/ Vagabon
^ = w/ Madi Diaz
!= w/ Zsela
#= w/ Rodrigo Amarante
&= w/ Lean Year
% = Hand Habits