Aaron MF Olson has announced Songs Album II, his debut for Country Thyme Records, due June 26th. The LA musician — best known as the architect of L.A. Takedown’s “Baywatch Krautrock” and a sideman of choice across the city’s experimental and folk circuits — marks the occasion with the release of lead single and video “Nobody Can Tell”, visuals by Matt Hewitt, starring Aaron and Jonah F Olson.
A romantic ballad described in its own press materials as having innate sweetness — funny, given its chorus — “Nobody Can Tell” opens in bright, unhurried moderato, its melody sitting somewhere in the orbit of mid-sixties Stones but worn with a confidence that’s entirely Olson’s own. “It’s not a pessimistic look at the state of the world,” he says, “but rather an observation and subsequent expression of unease around the lack of responsible adults out there making decisions on humanity’s behalf.” The accompanying video leans into the song’s ambivalence with characteristic wit: a desert hike, apparent cannibalism, and an excess of Gipsy Kings fandom.
Songs Album II is Olson’s second collection of “sung songs” in just over a decade of releasing music, and his most focused — folk-rock arrangements, precise and spacious, framing lyrics that toggle between satiric, confessional and experimental modes. The album draws on a large ensemble including Robin MacMillian, Tara Milch, Blue Broderick, Bart Davenport and Wayne Faler, but the sensibility is resolutely Olson’s, shaped by years with L.A. Takedown, the Musical Tracing Ensemble, the exotica collective Other Delights, and stage appearances alongside Bedouine, Papa M, Vetiver and more.
Olson plays an album release show on June 24th at Zebulon, Los Angeles.
Songs Album II is released June 26th via Country Thyme Records.
Pre-Order: https://lnk.to/SongsAlbumII