For Angel Olsen, the shortest distance between loss and love is a country song
For the songwriter's sixth album, she leans into a retro country sound for a big-hearted set of songs about grief and burgeoning love.
Angel Olsen picks musical genres for her records the way other artists pick instruments. "I want that vaulted-ceiling feeling," another musician might say. "I want classic, I want sweeping. Piano it is." Olsen's previous releases have leaned on folk, rock, pop and psychedelia. For her sixth album, Big Time, the selection process could have sounded something like this: I want bruised hearts, I want resolutions, I want revelations, I want a conversation, I want a plaintive question, I want a long, steely look in a dusty rearview mirror. It has to be retro country.
