Filed under: news, trouser press | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, jen olive, warm robot
Jen Olive
Warm Robot
[Ape House; March 29]
Albuquerque resident Jen Olive has a number of self-released works out under other names, but has forgone comfortable anonymity to release this latest album via a recently inked deal with Ape House, the label owned by XTC’s Andy Partridge. The singer-songwriter was born in California but enjoyed a nomadic upbringing with her lounge singer mother and trombone playing father. A move to Albuquerque brought her directly into the arms of her father’s “crazy jazz family” (her uncle is the lead saxophonist for the Count Basie Orchestra), and the city itself played its own part in the conception of Warm Robot. Says Jen, “The depth and character of the place is in the old indigenous families, and you can’t help but be influenced by the culture. It’s very different, there’s not a lot of conventional Americana here.”
Warm Robot was recorded with all the due care and attention of a long-distance love song after a email exchange in 2007 sparked a creative affinity between Jen and Andy, who describes her as ”this astounding allegro algorithm from Albuquerque.” Despite 7000 miles of distance between them, the duo pursued a real-time cyber process; Jen would send Andy song sketches and basic percussive patterns played on found objects such as bottles, rocks and children’s building blocks, which he would then flesh out. From the small previews we’ve glimpsed, the result looks set to be one of the most strikingly individual albums we’ll hear all year.
Tracklist:
01 Boulevard
02 Warm Robot
03 Wire Wire
04 So Funny
05 Set It On Fire
06 Claustrophobe
07 Querquehouse
08 Pieces
09 All My Heads Meet
10 Franscrams!
11 Waffleson’s Dream
Jen Olive website
Label website
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
