Angel Olsen’s videos are often mysterious and cryptic, and this new one for her single ‘Intern’, off her forthcoming album ‘My Woman’, does not escape the rule. With her silver shiny hair, she looks like a disco queen and there’s something definitively 80’s vintage about the décor (and this abrupt color bars at the end), as if Angel was reclaiming glitter from glam rock and ABBA.
As for the music, it is quite different from her signature sound, the song is a slow and sleepy story, hypnotic and shoegazing for two minutes, this is such a dreamy one-line-with-no-layers synth affair that you may wonder where Angel’s finger-picking guitar has gone.
One thing is certain, her powerful voice is still intact, going to multi-levels of emotions, but is this going be enough for fans who are so attached to her folksy songs and her Orbison-esque all-range tremulous style? if the songstress demonstrates she knows how to keep things fresh, while still making her vocals shine like her new hairdo, the sparseness of this new track may indicate a brand new direction for her new album. You have to know that Angel worked with producer Justin Raisen on this one and Raisen has previously collaborated with artists like Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX,… this is what the press release says about the sound of the album:
‘The album is put together as a proper A-side and a B-side, featuring the punchier, more pop/rock-oriented songs up front, and the longer, more reflective tracks towards the end. And because these new songs demanded a plurality of voices, Olsen sings in a much broader range of styles — her disarming, timeless voice is even more front-and-center than before.’
As the first track of the album, ‘Intern’ could be a A-track, but its sound would rather put it in the B-side category according to this description, so who knows?
The clip was directed by Olsen herself, with the collaboration of Ashley Connor and Jethro Waters, and here is the tracklist of ‘My Woman’:
01 Intern
02 Never Be Mine
03 Shut Up Kiss Me
04 Give It Up
05 Not Gonna Kill You
06 Heart Shaped Face
07 Sister
08 Those Were The Days
09 Woman
10 Pops