"Brutally raw"

As someone prone to reflecting deeply on (and interrogating) both herself and her art, Angel Olsen always makes for a fascinating interviewee. Judging by the comments made in this recent conversation with Pitchfork's Quinn Moreland, though, there may not be many more interviews to enjoy.

Occasionally in the past a degree of frostiness and prickliness has come across, and it seems as though she's increasingly irritated by the pressure or perceived need to play the promotional game and market herself as well as her albums as a product: "If I had it my way, I would put out a record, do all of my photos myself, put out a manifesto so I don't have to do any fucking interviews, and play a few shows here and there throughout the year ... [I]f I could go without advertising my work constantly, and I didn't have to look or sound like a fucking interesting person, then I wouldn't do it at all. I would just put out the music and let people take it for what it is." She's probably now at a point when she could get away with that - but it would be a shame not to be able to read her words on the page as well as hear her voice in our ears.

Perhaps this is all prompted by new LP Whole New Mess, for which she claims to have gone "back to my roots" in recording and releasing something that is "really raw" and "really purposefully fucked up". Moreland aptly describes it as "the barebones set of demos" that were subsequently fleshed out to form the staggering All Mirrors, "its larger-than-life twin".

Maybe it's because the latter came first (and because I've never really got into Half Way Home and her earlier, folkier material), but I can't help but see the versions on Whole New Mess as mere preliminary sketches that were astutely blown up to a massive and infinitely more satisfying and impressive scale for All Mirrors. Her sound and range has expanded so dramatically and thrillingly over the last few records - as good as Whole New Mess undoubtedly is on its own merits, I'm hoping that it doesn't signal a retreat back into a musical comfort zone as well as a retreat from engagement with the world, interviewers and all.