Achingly vulnerable and hauntingly tender, Olivia O.’s stirring new single “All I Want” captures the isolation, anxiety, and unsettling nature of leaving home for the first time.
Stream: “All I Want” – Olivia O.
… paint eyes on my wrists so i can look out for myself when i’m sleeping…
An intimate, evocative lo-fi world of sound comes to life in Olivia O.’s new single as the artist weaves a spellbinding tapestry of raw emotion. Achingly vulnerable and hauntingly tender, “All I Want” captures the isolation, anxiety, and unsettling nature of leaving home for the first time. It’s a tranquilizing wash of visceral feeling – one that both recalls youth’s innocence, as well as the loss of that innocence as we grow up.
i’ll say it like how i know you want me to
but i won’t mean most of anything
bye bye
peace and free will
i’ll sell you so i can get my share of fun
paint eyes on my wrists
so i can look out for myself when i’m sleeping
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “All I Want,” Olivia O.’s first solo release of 2021 (out now via Dirty Hit) and the lead single off her forthcoming sophomore EP Great Big Nothing. The artist moniker for 18-year-old Atlanta-based singer, songwriter, and producer Olivia Osby, Olivia O. has been treating audiences to soothingly sweet musical enchants for the past three years now. Also one-half of the experimental indie band Lowertown (which she plays in with Avsha Weinberg), Osby’s has quickly become something of a phenomenon in the indie sphere. She last released her debut EP Bedtime Music in September 2019, followed by the standalone single “Vim” the next month. Meanwhile, Lowertown released the wily and wondrous EP Honeycomb, Bedbug in December of 2020.
It’s been a minute since Osby treated audiences to her own singular art, but with a new EP on the way, that’s all about to change. She describes Great Big Nothing as an exercise in spontaneous art-making. “The stuff that I make for my solo project is more spur of the moment, less methodical,” she tells Atwood Magazine. “I’ll have an idea that pops into my head, and I’ll just sort of try to get it down.”
Soft and stirring, “All I Want” resonates as an impulsive, impromptu outpouring of a weary heart.
Olivia O. sings a fond farewell to her childhood home bound up in wistful, plaintive melodies; her vivid, evocative voice subdued to a near-whisper, she emotes a sense of surrender and acceptance. Heavy feelings spill forth as she builds to a multi-tracked crescendo in the chorus:
long ago, far from home
away from you
in suspension
from this place and the next
you can be real if you wanted to
It’s a painful look at what it means to grow up and set out on your own, sung in real time.
“’All I Want’ is about the experience of moving out for the first time,” Olivia O. explains. “Feeling a sense of unease with the unfamiliarity of my surroundings. It’s about growing out of a comfortable environment and realizing that in order to keep growing and to follow the natural progression of life, you need to have new (and sometimes uncomfortable) experiences. Lastly, it’s about me growing to understand that adulthood is a lot more isolating and lonely than I’d expected it to be. A lot of the time it can feel like you’re the only person who is watching out for yourself or that truly understands who you are.”
A lot of the time it can feel like you’re the only person who is watching out for yourself or that truly understands who you are.
greedy pincers pulling at my shirt
loose change
strewn on the curb
bye bye
my home and place of comfort
you have expired long ago
long ago
far from home
away from you
Osby isn’t wrong in her stark assessment of independence; we lose the security and safety net of childhood when we accept our transition into young adulthood, and while we’re not necessarily completely alone in the world, it can all too often feel like we’ve stumbled into maturity, rather than made it there gracefully. “All I Want” dwells in the darkness of these harrowing first steps of adulthood, seducing the ears with a somber, melancholy performance that is as hypnotic as it is heartfelt.
Inspired by a time of transition and change, “All I Want” (and indeed, Osby’s forthcoming EP) capture the artist in her truest, realest, raw state. Music like this can feel overwhelming, because of the overwhelming sensations that inspire it – but if you can make it through that, you can join Olivia O. and dwell in a beautifully poignant, stripped-down state of self-reflection.
This is the start of something very special. Olivia O.’s sophomore EP Great Big Nothing is out later this year. Stream “All I Want” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
in suspension
from this place and the next
you can be real if you wanted to
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Stream: “All I Want” – Olivia O.
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