New videos: Angel Olsen

“A transatlantic collaboration between four friends”. Two new videos from Angel Olsen…

I don’t know about you but I am getting silly excited about Angel Olsen‘s upcoming visit to the Half Moon Theatre on 3rd May. Having wowed all in attendance as part of Bonnie “Prince” Billy‘s touring band in 2012, the Cork leg of a four-stop Irish tour will be the Chicago songwriter’s first solo concerts in Ireland. Not so long ago, videos for both ‘Tiniest Seed’ (taken from 2012 LP Half Way Home) and ‘Sweet Dreams’ (from this year’s 7″ release, Sleepwalker) were released onto the world wide web. Filmed individually by four different film-makers, Randy Sterling Hunter, Ashley Connor, Zia Anger and Angel herself the contributions were then spliced together. Here’s the official statement on the to-ings and fro-ings.

“The score was mailed back across the Atlantic and then interpreted using a hand-wound 16mm camera. Two rolls of film were shot in barns and fields, and in gorges and on piers in Upstate, New York. The beginning of the score called for a meiotic effect to be used in tandem with the song “Tiniest Seed.” The film was exposed and then rewound and re-exposed many times. Later in the score a more intuitive approach to shooting was the direction, as a reaction to the song “Sweet Dreams.” These images were collected with the foreknowledge that the film would be extensively manipulated in the darkroom. The film was mailed back to Vienna. An archaic homemade contact printer was used to create the final look and that film was hand-processed, and rinsed and repeated all in the same room in which the score began. 

The final version is the documentation of an epistolary-exchange lasting nearly a year. It is an attempt to sync the unsyncable and our experiment at reconciling the space between us. Every hand visible in the final film. A 16mm print available and recommended for screening purposes. This is the digital version.”

Watch both videos above and below now.

For more on Angel Olsen visit:

– Angel Olsen and Cal Folger Day play Half Moon Theatre (Cork) Friday, 3rd May
– Tickets are €10 and are available from the Cork Opera House/Half Moon or via the official site here
– RSVP to the official event here