photo: Pierre Toussaint
Art pop act Olympia, the project led by Australian singer Olivia Jayne Bartley, is briiming with ideas on the sophomore release Flamingo. With the aid of Donny Benet (bass), Peter Luscombe (drums), and Ben Hauptman (additional guitar) she kept adding things and more things until she and her producer Burke Reid decided that it would smother the songs if they did one more. The results are a mixed bag of styles, with a rather and sometimes plain boring rhythm tracks holding things in check (case in point: Hounds). Bartley has plenty of issues to write about: love, the tweeting idiot living in a big house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, guilt, kicks, and what-have-you.
Flamingo looks good, but it has trouble flying. There are some highlights, like the nervous rocker Two Hands, the Eighties New Wave in Shoot To Forget, and the melancholic Nervous Riders as a showcase for her vocal range, but a love song like Won't Say That has downright cheesy lyrics. A bigger budget and more time spend in the recording studio did not pay off. Maybe they should have hired an intern holding up a sign with "kill you darlings" while they were at it.
Flamingo is released via EMI. Release date: July 5
Tracks:- Star City
- Come Back
- Easy Pleasure
- Nervous Riders
- Hounds
- Won't Say That
- Two Hands
- Shoot To Forget
- First You Leave
- Flamingo
- Wrong Number
- 07/20 Latitude Festival, Beccles, UK
- 07/22 Old Blue Last, London, UK
- 07/24 Yes, Manchester, UK
- 07/26 The Sound House, Dublin, Ireland
- 09/11 Pattern, Brighton, UK
- 09/18 Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 09/19 Auster-Club, Berlin, Germany
- 09/20 Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, Germany
- 09/21 Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, Germany
- 10/04 Anglesea Memorial Hotel, Anglesea, Australia
- 10/05 Corner Hotel, Melbourne, Australia
- 10/11 Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, Australia
- 10/25 Black Bear Lodge, Fortitude Valley, Australia
