#Angel Olsen Announces New EP Aisles, Shares Cover of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria”: Listen

Angel Olsen has announced a new covers EP called Aisles. The five-song record will arrive August 20, marking Olsen’s debut release on her Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic. Aisles is a selection of ’80s covers; today, Olsen has shared her version of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” Listen to that below and scroll down for the EP art and tracklist.

“I know it’s not really in my history to do something unintentional or just for the hell of it, but my connection to these songs is pretty straightforward,” Olsen said in a press release. “I just wanted to have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous, and I think I needed to remember that I could!”

Olsen recorded Aisles in the winter of 2020 at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with co-producer and engineer Adam McDaniel. “I told Adam I had an idea to record some covers and bring some of the band into the mix, or add other players,” Olsen said. She continued:

I needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general. I thought about completely changing some of the songs and turning them inside out. I’d come over to find Adam had set up 5 or so synthesizers, and we’d get lost on a part for a while messing with some obscure pedal I knew nothing about. We’d spend a good amount of time going through sounds before finding one or two, sometimes we’d get real weird and decide to just go with it.

I’d heard “Gloria” for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance. I imagined them all dancing and laughing in slow motion, and that’s when I got the idea to slow the entire song down and try it out in this way.

Of her new somethingscosmic imprint, Olsen added: “I’m very excited to be introducing somethingscosmic, an imprint that will serve as the home for all my covers, collaborations, and one off singles. In this time away from touring I have been inspired to create more, and somethingscosmic will give the me flexibility to release when and how I want to with the help from my longtime partners at Jagjaguwar. The hope is that it will become a place for all of my creative endeavors, music and otherwise.”

Read Pitchfork’s 2020 feature interview “Angel Olsen Is at a Crossroads, Again.”

Aisles EP:

01 Gloria
02 Eyes Without a Face
03 Safety Dance
04 If You Leave
05 Forever Young