Various Artists — Cosmic Waves Volume 1 (Jagjaguwar/Somethingcosmic)
To watch Angel Olsen on her Big Time tour in 2022 was to watch someone who’d settled comfortably into their own both personally and professionally. Despite the title, that album’s steady middle ground between the muddled decadence of All Mirrors and stripped-back Whole New Mess sounded like Angel had finally found some equilibrium. She must’ve been feeling that during the era, too — enough, in fact, to warrant firing back up her own Somethingcosmic imprint. Early December 2024’s Cosmic Waves Volume 1 is the second evidence of said label (her 2021 Aisles EP is the first), though Jagjaguwar’s again doing the heavy lifting on promotion and, it appears, vinyl releases. Regardless, Somethingcosmic gives Olsen “the flexibility to release when and how I want to.” This is money in the bank for the Jagjag camp, so it makes as much cents as it does sense, but what she does with the compilation format here makes for interesting listening.
The short of it is that Olsen’s given the front half of the comp to artists she’s attracted to her orbit; the back half is her covering each of these artists. Considering she’s been based in North Carolina for several years at this point, it’s curious that the comp doesn’t feature any artists from the Asheville area, instead comprising Poppy Jean Crawford, Coffin Prick, Sarah Grace White and Maxim Ludwig, who are all from Los Angeles, and Camp Saint Helene as the lone holdout from Catskill, New York. Despite the geographic imbalance, however, the spiritual fabric of the musicians remains consistent.
Let’s start with the back half since there is less to say about what Angel does with the covers. Olsen tackles the EP title-tracks from Crawford’s undeniably catchy The Takeover and White’s Sinkhole; the concluding cut from Coffin Prick’s album Laughing; Ludwig’s “Born Too Blue,” originally out way back in 2012; and “Farfisa Song” from Camp Saint Helene’s debut Mother. In each case, the covers are reverent but spartan — there are no radical reinventions or compositional experiments here. Instead, Angel strips any excess away to deliver a handful of covers that foreground what has always been her most alluring talent, that singular voice, accompanied only by guitar or piano (“Sinkhole”). In both cases, she tweaks the reverb and mic effects, but there’s only one person any of these songs could’ve come from.
The front half is where the diversity happens, but for an album entitled Cosmic Waves, nobody must’ve told Crawford the mood would be more subdued. What we get from her is “Glamorous,” one of the most arresting songs in her discography and a screaming rocker that recalls no less than Hole, Cable Ties, Scanners or Savages (and it won’t surprise you to learn she recently opened for Placebo); it’s an astonishing opener made all the more so because nothing after it even remotely shoots for the rafters. Instead, you get Coffin Prick’s edgy, eye-shifting funk with “Blood”; White’s “Ride” perhaps most closely echoes Olsen’s early, more hauntingly isolated releases; Ludwig (here credited without early backing band The Santa Fe Seven or the more recent Mystics) doing a kind of Randy Newman or Harry Nilsson — or, let’s be realer, Five for Fighting — piano ballad on “Make Believe You Love Me”; and Camp Saint Helene’s full-band soft touch on “Wonder Now,” which to me gets closest not only to an Angel Olsen imitation but also to the ethos of the compilation’s title.
In each of these songs, though, you can see where the artists overlap with Olsen. The angst of “Glamorous” goes hand in hand with any number of Angel’s most cathartic moments; “Blood” would fit right in on Aisles; “Make Believe You Love Me” could easily be a demo from as far back as Burn Your Fire for No Witness; and “Ride and “Wonder Now” could work just about anywhere across her discography. I’ve seen some chatter suggesting this compilation is a way for Angel Olsen to buy herself some time before her next grand move, but that’s selling short both her and the small cadre of artists she’s got here; if anything, it should be an auspicious calling card for whatever’s to come from Somethingcosmic.
in an alternate timeline we do end up together. that timeline is warm, giggly, pure, and whole hearted. but that is not this timeline. this timeline is the one where i learn to take indecision as no. the one where i have to unlearn to love you. this is the one where the memories of sun rays beaming down on fields and mountains alike, nights where the stars make you feel infinite, accompanied by the perfect melody or the perfect silence, make me sad. my favorite things make me sad now because in this timeline I learned that they were your favorite too.
Angel Olsen - “Eyes Without a Face” (Billy Idol Cover)
Photo courtesy of Dana Trippe
After dazzling listeners with her own spellbinding songwriting craft, Angel Olsen is opting for a little fun for her own sake on this week’s release of the Aisles EP, in which she reframes ‘80s pop classics through her own strange gaze. Her take on “Gloria” slowed down the flash dance to a shutter while her interpretation of “The Safety Dance” inserted a synthetic sci-fi soundtrack’s worth of paranoia while feeding off modern day happenings into the narrative. The final preview looks straight into Billy Idol’s 193 new wave ballad “Eyes Without a Face” and paints the stars all over its shadowdy celestial body. Give it a look below...
Angel Olsen’s Aisles EP will be released August 20th digitally and September 24th on somethingcosmic.
Angel Olsen - “The Safety Dance” (Men Without Hats Cover)
Photo courtesy of Dana Trippe
Men Without Hats’ 1981 odd-center hit “The Safety Dance” is one of those unusual pop success stories that couldn’t be any more emblematic of its era where the music didn’t need to speak too deeply about anything beyond carefree, emotional joy (especially when paired with an equally whimsical music video) than to just be. In the hands of Angel Olsen and on the fringe of a moment in history defined by our collective concerns over having to think twice about every move in our usual daily lives, it has become something so much more grave in within that mold.
“I felt this song could be reinterpreted to be about the time of quarantine and the fear of being around anyone or having too much fun,” says Olsen of her interpretation of the track, the latest preview off her ‘80s covers EP Aisles. “It made me wonder, is it safe to laugh or dance or be free of it all for just a moment?” The only thing that’s certain here is that Olsen’s futuristic specter traversing its sci-fi synthetic symphony soundscape makes you ponder every intention -- Each verse raising more questions with every move. "Dance" with Angel and your anxieties below...
Angel Olsen’s Aisles EP will be released August 20th digitally and September 24th on somethingcosmic.
If the universe-expanding synths beaming from All Mirrors’ surface and the manifestation of that energy resulting in a maximalist countrypolitan mega ballad alongside kindred spirit Sharon Van Etten hinted at anything, it’s that Angel Olsen’s comfort with polished pop has been growing in recent years, especially when turning to the sound’s ‘80s touchstones. Her next move steps off from there with spontaneity and simply fun intentions, as she’ll be covering five songs from that decade on the Aisles EP, due out at the end of summer digitally and early fall physically on her newly launched Jagjaguwar imprint somethingcosmic.
In Olsen’s own reflection, we’ll hear her take on classics by Billy Idol, Men Without Hats, OMD and Alphaville. Its first preview is of Laura Branigan’s Flashdance smash “Gloria” suggests that of the whole, she will be redirecting each song’s straight-forwardness through her veil of wandering dreams and turn them into something of her own likeness as the listen reverberates through celestial echoes and cellos flow into the ether. “I’d heard ‘Gloria’ for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance,” reflected Olsen of her creative process. “I imagined them all dancing and laughing in slow motion, and that’s when I got the idea to slow the entire song down and try it out in this way.” She's got its number below...
Angel Olsen’s Aisles EP will be released August 20th digitally and September 24th on somethingcosmic.
