213. Angel Olsen - 'Burn Your Fire For No Witness' + Chancellor Cocktail
Ingredients: 2 ounces blended Scotch whisky, 1 ounce ruby port, 1/2 ounce French Vermouth, 2 dashes orange bitters.
Mixing Instructions: Combine ingredients in a shaker and stir with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Notes: The sophomore album from Missouri-born Angel Olsen strikes an emotional chord that I hadn't felt since last year's self-titled debut from Torres (pairing here). Both women possess a wavering haunt in their voice that keeps you up at night. Though she captured a good deal of praise for her mostly-acoustic debut album, Half Way Home, this album is a step forward musically, pulling in more instrumentation, electric guitar and an overall fuller sound to contrast her still stark and to-the-point vocals. Additionally, lyrics like the following show a ray of hope that I don't remember from her earlier work,
If you've still got some light in you
Then go before it's gone
Burn your fire for no witness
It's the only way it's done
Fierce and light and young
Fierce and light and young
Hit the ground and run
Hit the ground and run
If Torres was the high school drama student unironically reading Poe during lunch on a grassy knoll, Olsen was her slightly more rebellious sister smoking cigarettes instead of eating and tempting the dumb jocks in art class with her shy demeanor and vintage Pink Floyd t-shirt. There's the sense with each that there's more to them than meets the eye and ear, which is enjoyable because there's already so much life in their music to inhale. An early contender for one of the year's best, spin Burn Your Fire...with a ruby Scotch cocktail, the perfect blend of beauty and bite.