Fluxblog
October 15th, 2019 3:28pm

Just To Feel Something Again


Angel Olsen “What It Is”

“What It Is” could’ve worked just fine if it was just left at Angel Olsen doing her version of a chugging T. Rex glam song. It probably would’ve been my favorite song on her new record either way, because I prefer this sort of groove to the more dirgey or ponderous material that makes up most of the album. What pushes the song from good to great is the string arrangement by Jherek Bischoff, which starts off as a flourish that adds a touch of drama to the central groove, but eventually becomes foregrounded in an instrumental break that radically shifts the sense of scale and depth in the composition. Bischoff’s strings seem to leap out of the mix like the audio equivalent of a 3-D effect, and are recorded with a touch of reverb that evokes glimmering lights on chrome. It’s bombastic but tightly controlled, which is a nice contrast with Olsen’s more mannered approach to her vocal performance. She’s singing about trying to figure out your emotions or even know enough to recognize a strong feeling when it’s right there. She’s essentially singing the ego, while Bischoff’s arrangement covers the id, and the rest of the music is like the unbridged gulf between all this feeling and thinking.

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