With a preference for a lush skyline and the organic life, it seems odd that Olsen’s latest project, Aisles, is a five-track EP of 80s synth-pop covers that include Billy Idol’s sultry “Eyes Without a Face” and the platinum chartbuster, “Gloria.” The album art for the EP’s cover also has a dramatic neon flair with Olsen done up in vibrant strokes of face paint; ready for the dance floor, ready for the night – a whole lot of Grace Jones without the revealing wardrobe. “I was trying to have fun with it,” laughs Olsen. “Kind of leaning into the clown inside. Also, 80s make-up is so overdone. The EP altogether is just a result of me being deeply depressed during Covid and everyone was so touching, including myself. I just wanted to make something that was purely for fun.” 

If the name of the EP, Aisles, doesn’t quite register as overtly 80s, Olsen explains it comes with a playful twist about being lost in the supermarket. “When I first sat down with (co-producer) Adam McDaniel I said, ‘I want to make a few 80s songs that everyone already knows.’ And also do some weird ones, the kind you hear in the grocery store when you’re just browsing. Top 40 songs you hear when you’re there, but nowhere else.”

Although, the inspiration to cover “Gloria,” Laura Branigan’s disco mega-hit and the first single off the EP, didn’t come from roaming the aisles at Safeway. Rather it sprung from a family Christmas bash that involved some serious dancing and drinking. Olsen, who’s originally from St. Louis, also learned, much to her surprise, that “Gloria” was the rally song for the St. Louis Blues NHL team. When the track came out, she got peppered with comments asking if she was giving St. Louis a big shout out? Olsen was equally amused and perplexed, and for good reason, because her version is nothing like Branigan’s fist-pumping party favourite. “The original is coked out. It moves just so fast. I thought it would be really fun to pretend she’d taken some Quaaludes and make that kind of version of the song.”

That Angel Olsen would take something and run in the complete opposite direction is not new. Expect the unexpected. After the release of 2017’s My Woman and its breakout with the upbeat single “Shut Up, Kiss Me,” Olsen’s live shows were rousing affairs full of searing, stratospheric twin lead guitars that were a notable tip-of-the hat to Neil Young. And then, as if the guitars had been tossed aside and locked in their case, her follow up album, All Mirrors, embraced a radical synth soundscape that was ethereal, orchestral, and way out there. Goodbye rock and roll.

“I’m definitely not done with that kind of music,” says Olsen on a reassuring note. “There’s always a few artists that I go back and listen to non-stop. The Beatles and Neil Young, pick any album. Fleetwood Mac, pick any album. And Brian Eno, pick any album. With Eno, I’ve been listening to a lot more of that lately. But sometimes I just get tired of lyric-driven or guitar solo music and go into different worlds.”