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Angel Olsen

Angel Olsen

Since 2010 · United States

Angel Olsen spent several years as a backing vocalist for Bonnie "Prince" Billy before releasing her own records, which moved quickly from the stark, unaccompanied folk of her earliest recordings toward fuller, more varied arrangements without losing the vocal idiosyncrasy that set her apart… Their story

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Who they shaped

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Behind them, left to right: Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground, Neil Young.

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Burn Your Fire for No Witness cover

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Burn Your Fire for No Witness (2014)

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Burn Your Fire for No Witness moves between raw, distorted full-band rock and stripped-back acoustic balladry without any sense of the two modes being in tension, Olsen's voice — capable of a wounded murmur or a full-throated wail — the through-line either way. "Shut Up Kiss Me" rides a driving, almost garage-rock riff toward a chorus that reads as both plea and demand. "White Fire" shows the record's quieter extreme, seven minutes of hushed intensity built on almost nothing but voice and guitar. It's a record that refuses to pick a single register and is stronger for it.

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Angel Olsen

Burn Your Fire for No Witness · 2014

Angel Olsen spent several years as a backing vocalist for Bonnie "Prince" Billy before releasing her own records, which moved quickly from the stark, unaccompanied folk of her earliest recordings toward fuller, more varied arrangements without losing the vocal idiosyncrasy that set her apart — a voice capable of a wounded quaver one moment and a full-throated roar the next.

Burn Your Fire for No Witness (2014) established her as a significant solo artist in her own right, mixing lo-fi rock with more intimate acoustic songs on the same record. Subsequent albums, including the more orchestrally ambitious All Mirrors (2019), continued to expand her range while retaining the emotional volatility that has been the consistent thread across her catalog, from the quietest ballad to the loudest full-band arrangement.

Since 2010 · United States