BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edtion - June 2016

ANGEL OLSEN
inviting listeners to find the humour
by Liam Prost
“I whose wavering vocal crescendo’s are as ‘jazz-singer’ as they are
don’t want to sound serious anymore, that’s not the full picture of me.”
There’s a lot written about Angel Olsen, a crooning songwriter
‘horror-movie soundtrack.’ Within the indie-darling-discourse of Olsen, the
centre-point is obviously her beautiful, heart-rending music, which broaches
freak-folk in the intimate moments, and lo-fi rock at its edge. Her most
recent release Burn Your Fire for No Witness (2014) is a tremendous record of
fragmented sentiments, a cavalcade of visceral emotions and haunting lyrics.
Burn Your Fire cut “White Fire” opens with the cutting line “everything is
tragic, it all just falls apart.” For most other singer-songwriters, the self-seriousness
of such a sentiment would be striking, but this particular lyrical moment
is one she wants people to shit to. In a recent interview with Spin, Olsen
reported that she wants her music to soundtrack Lena Dunham defecating
in the HBO ensemble dramedy Girls, a show which she respects for “showing
every angle” of “daily life,” even those angles to which camera lenses do not
often focus. This remark is revealing both of Olsen’s music as a method with
which to reconfigure expectations about tone and emotionality, but also of
her sense of humour.
Olsen tells BeatRoute, “I don’t want to sound serious anymore, that’s not
the full picture of me.” A suggestion which is obvious to us on the receiving
end of her quips and liberal use of the word “dude.”
Olsen is a hugely buzzed about act, with media attention all over the place
and an outrageous Twitter personality, her lack of self-seriousness dares listeners
to read humour into her often dour music. Despite her success and newfound
public profile, she still opines that “it’s a privilege to be interviewed.”
Those who read her interviews or listen to her music “get to carve the piece
anyway,” and get acquainted with their own vertical slice of Angel Olsen. She
tells us that “you have to embrace the character that you are,” and it became
clear that no one knows Angel Olsen better than Angel Olsen.
While tight-lipped about details regarding her material, Olsen teases that
we can expect something “very soon” and that “it’ll still be wordy,” with some
“upbeat poppy shit” and of course, more “introverted material.” An impending
release to which Olsen admits to being “so relieved and so excited.”
Angel Olsen performs at Central United Church on June 22nd as part of Sled
Island Music and Arts Festival.
JULIA HOLTER
elusive songwriter and composer experiments with limitations
Julia Holter is an elusive person. Her most recent record
Have You in My Wilderness suggests an invitation into her
world, an exploration of the driving forces and collateral
damage of a musical career that has spun from academic
composition into convivial experimentation and even dipping
in pop and folk. Wilderness however, inviting as its green and
sprawling arrangements prove to be, provides few windows
into the songstress herself. Her narratives are elusive and often
impersonal, and her vocalizations are theatrical. There is a
grandness and eloquence to her music that seems impossible
to retain in a touring band, but Holter tells BeatRoute that despite
having incredibly ornate instrumentation on the record,
she is “really happy with the live band.” Holter performs in a
four-piece with viola, drums, bass, and herself on keyboard.
A smaller ensemble to be sure, but it is hardly stripped down.
Movements are reproduced, but sharpened, notes that float
on the record punctuate the live sound.
“I approach performing as a very different thing,” she says, and
“I enjoy the limitation of a different set of people for a live show.”
With this most recent recording, Holter infused some improvisation
from her band, an inclusion which seeps even deeper into
the live show, a change she views as an experimentation, not
necessarily a “progression.”
“With every project I have a different amount of control,” she
says. Holter kept a tight lock on her early recordings and that
has loosened more recently, but that doesn’t mean that she will
not take that road again. Rather, Holter experiments with adding
and removing limitations, influences, and improvisations.
“Every project is different and that’s what’s fun about it.”
Holter has also composed music for film, another such project
with its own set of limitations. She say that when composing for film
you are constricted to “what someone else wants you [to do],” and
SHOTGUN JIMMIE
new LP a tribute to indie-rock love affair
a long time touring around with other bands had
been a big part of my day to day, and I love a lot of
“For
those bands,” says Shotgun Jimmie a.k.a. Jim Kilpatrick
in between sets at Lawnya Vawnya in St. John’s, NL. “In the same
way that some songwriters just write love songs about love interests,
those bands are kind of my love interests.”
The love interests that Kilpatrick is referring to are bands like the
Constantines, Attack in Black, Eric’s Trip, and Project 9; bands that
also served as inspiration for a series of tributes on the indie-rockers
latest record, Field of Trampolines.
by Liam Prost
that the role of a composer is to “underline the emotions” and not
necessarily create them as she does so easily on her own projects.
Have You in My Wilderness is a beautiful and organic record,
polished and rounded out with shades of Sergeant Pepper, breathes
of chamber pop, and the majesty of mystery. Only Julia Holter knows
where her music will go next.
Julia Holter performs at Theatre Junction GRAND (Flanagan Theatre)
on June 23rd as part of Sled Island Music and Arts Festival.
by Julijana Capone
“I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a tribute album
for awhile,” explains Kilpatrick, who previously paid homage to
Ladyhawk and Guided By Voices on his 2013 album, Everything
Everything. “I guess it just keeps popping up when I’m writing.”
The world-travelling singer-songwriter has called Brandon, MB
his home for the past few years, and recently started studying Visual
& Aboriginal Art at Brandon University. While his previous albums
have been largely a one-man-band affair, Kilpatrick says his artschool
studies have opened him up to working more collaboratively.
Enter Joel Plaskett, who produced the album at his studio in Dartmouth,
NS, and Human Music, the Winnipeg trio that appear on the
record and also function as Kilpatrick’s backing band, as of late.
“I had a realization watching Joel play at SappyFest a few years ago
that he’s just a genius,” says Kilpatrick. “He’d been saying ‘Hey man, I
want to record a record for you,’ and I thought if I have an opportunity
to work with this guy while he and I are both healthy, alive and
making music, then it would be foolish not to try it at least.”
Among the 10 tracks on the LP are a few sunny salutes to touring
and camping (“Join The Band” and “Triple Letter Score”), along with
those endearingly earnest tribute tracks, and the out-of-nowhere
psychedelic title tune. Indeed, the album is both a love letter to
Kilpatrick’s favourite bands and the adventures that come with life
on the road.
“I sort of had the idea that the Field of Trampolines would
be this metaphor for this better place or this better place of
existing,” he says.
Shotgun Jimmie performs at the Ship & Anchor on June 23rd and at
Wine-Ohs on June 24th as part of Sled Island Music and Arts Festival.
32 | JUNE 2016 • BEATROUTE ROCKPILE