Olsen has since signed with the Jagjaguwar label. A release date for her upcoming album has not yet been announced. But, she says, “I’m working on some new things. I don’t want to force them, though. I have some vague idea of when I might record, but we’ll see. It will be sooner than later because I don’t want to wait too long. It has to come naturally.”

In the meantime, you can catch Olsen live in Philadelphia as she performs an opening set for Kurt Vile on May 18 at Union Transfer. We recently caught up with Olsen while she was touring the West Coast, and we spoke to her about television shows, books, painters, movies, and some other stuff. Here’s what she said.

The Key: Hi Angel. What’s up?

Angel Olsen: Not much. I just played Phoenix. It was really fun. Now we’re in Tempe, Arizona. We’re looking for a swimming hole. We’re going to a place called Kenyon Lake. And now I’m drinking some coffee. I just woke up like 30 minutes ago, so I feel like I’m going to be very experimental with answering these questions.

TK: Good. It’s Friday, and everyone’s over everything. So I won’t ask you all the dumb questions interviewers usually ask like, “How did you get the name Angel Olsen?” I’ll just ask you some random questions like this one: Do you watch television?

AO: Not really. But I got really into Downton Abbey over the winter. Me and my friends did. It was pretty ridiculous. I don’t know what’s so good about it—I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never been a television person, but I watched a lot of that. And I always go back to Freaks & Geeks. Every episode is so perfect. But I only really watch television in the winter because there’s nothing to do in Chicago and I get tired of going out and forcing myself to do things. But, in the summer, I’m normally out riding my bike, or getting some tacos, or running around outside. You know, living.

TK: Are you saying that watching television is not living?

AO: It’s living, it’s just, yeah. It can suck you in and make you emotional about things that have nothing to do with your life when you should be emotional about living your own life. I don’t know. It’s like when you start watching something and you get really into it, and you have to sit there and watch the whole thing. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want that to happen in my own life. But it does sometimes.

TK: Have you seen any good movies recently?

AO: I saw Rust And Bone. It’s about a woman who is a whale trainer, and she loves to go dancing: she loves to go to the club. And the other main character is really into boxing, and he has a son that he doesn’t take care of, but then he has to. It’s hard to feel empathy for either character in the beginning. There are some really intense plot twists. She eventually loses her legs. They become good friends. I won’t say anymore, but it was amazing.

TK: You almost spoiled it.

AO: Almost, but I didn’t. There’s more, Elliott. You have to watch the whole movie. You still don’t know what happens.

TK: I’ll put it in my queue. Do you like books?

AO: Yeah. Do you know António Lobo Antunes? I went to the bookstore the other day to find one of his book. I’m really into Carlos Ruiz Zafon, too. He writes a lot about love and incest and murder and war. I just finished one of his books called The Prisoner of Heaven. The title is kind of whack, but it was awesome.

TK: “Whack.” Wow. I haven’t heard that word used in a while. Do you have a favorite book that you go back to and reread?

AO: There was this one Paul Auster book that I got really into once. But now I can’t remember the name of it.

TK: I’ve read a lot of his stuff. What’s it about?

AO: It’s about a professor whose family dies in a plane crash…

TK: That sounds like The Book Of Illusions. That’s a good one.

AO: I love that book. He becomes obsessed with some Charlie Chaplin character that disappears in the 1930s, and then he gets a strange letter in the mail, and his life changes. I tried to get more people to read it. The first time I read it, I was like 18 or 19, and I loved it. I really like Paul Auster. He’s hit or miss, but I love his books. I read them even if they are shit and they go nowhere.

TK: I went to a Paul Auster reading at the library here in Philadelphia a few months ago and he signed one of my books. He was a nice guy. When I walked over he said, “Hello, young man.”

AO: Oh, really? He has a really interesting face. He seems like a character in one of his books.

TK: Sometimes he is a character in his books. It seemed like we could’ve been good friends if we’d had more time together.

AO: Maybe he could put you in one of his books.

TK: That would be nice. Do you do any writing outside of songwriting?

AO: I like to write postcards and letters. I love writing letters to friends. I don’t know if I’m good at it, but I enjoy doing it when I have the time. I send letters to close friends who’ve moved away, and other people I don’t see very often.

TK: Interestingly, Paul Auster’s new book is a collection of correspondence between him and a friend.

AO: That’s amazing. I should go through all my old email and check that shit out. There’s probably some good stuff in there. And probably some dumb stuff, too.

TK: Do you write fiction?

AO: Not really, but I’d like to. I’d like to spend more time on it, but I end up getting frustrated. I like trying to write dialogue.

TK: Do you do any other creative stuff that’s not music?

AO: I like making lo-fi music videos. That’s fun. I don’t have fancy equipment, but I’ve been doing stuff like that recently. I have a lot of friends that make noise and experimental music, so I’ve made some videos for them. I used to make that kind of music, too, but I don’t really anymore. Maybe I will in the future. I used to play accordion, and drone it out. It sounded totally crazy. I love hearing that music and being around it.

TK: Are you into visual art?

AO: I was actually just talking about this artist the other day named Remedios Varo. She’s a woman from Spain who moved to Mexico and joined the Surrealist movement, but not in that order. I really got into her work.

TK: Do you paint?

AO: I have, but the paintings look so dumb. If someone sits in a room, and I spend hours working on it, it’s pretty good. But I can’t draw or paint from memory. I did some paintings of women, because I feel like I know the anatomy of women pretty well. But really boring stuff, like people’s faces. Nothing too experimental, really. Maybe in the future you’ll see some Angel Olsen art.

Angel Olsen plays with Kurt Vile and Steve Gunn on Saturday, May 18 at Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden Street. More information here.

Steve Gunn

Time Off deploys Gunn’s signature virtuosic guitar style, framed by the most commanding vocal performances he has yet committed to tape. These six songs showcase his oblique character sketches and story-songs about friends, acquaintances, and denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood.

In addition to the impending release, PoB has announced Gunn’s new role as a Violator for the upcoming Kurt Vile & The Violators tour, for which Gunn will also be an opener.  Tickets and information for that May 18th show at Union Transfer with Angel Olsen can be found here.  Tonight, Steve Gunn will play a set at AKA Music in Old City for the record store’s First Friday event, presented by Philebrity.  More information for the free show can be found on the Facebook event page here.  Below, watch Steve Gunn perform “Old Strange” at the Kensington Picnic and then check out Time Off‘s track list.

Time Off track list:

01 Water Wheel
02 Lurker
03 Street Keeper
04 New Decline
05 Old Strange
06 Trailways Ramble

Wakin On A Pretty Daze tracklist

Side A
01 Wakin On A Pretty Day
02 KV Crimes
03 Was All Talk

Side B
04 Girl Called Alex
05 Never Run Away
06 Pure Pain

Side C
07 Too Hard
08 Shame Chamber
09 Snowflakes Are Dancing

Side D
10 Air Bud
11 Goldthrone

Last year, the Internet was abuzz with glowing reviews of Olsen’s sophomore release Half Way Home and rightly so, for her emotive singing, honest lyrics, and rawness of spirit resounded with many listeners (including this one). Folkadelphia was lucky enough to capture to record a few songs while Angel was in Philadelphia, which is available here for streaming and download.

Photo by Zach Blum (The Deli-Philly)

Welcome to the Folkadelphia Sessions, a weekly feature focusing on the in-studio performances recorded by the Folkadelphia crew. Here, folk musicians and singer-songwriters are given the opportunity to share songs that we have recorded in a live, intimate, and often stripped-down fashion at the WXPN studios. There is a real truth and beauty in the rawness of the whole set-up that we hope you’ll hear and enjoy!

As we approach the end of the year, we undoubtedly arrive at “Best of 2012” Season, where everyone and their mother finally reveal what they’ve been considering, constructing, and bottling up for the last twelve months: their favorite albums, songs, and musical discoveries of 2012. I say this with a fair amount of derision, but I’m no different, for I dutifully piece together lists upon lists upon lists without really knowing why. This takes me to my main point- let us not forget these lists’ purpose. When I talk about “Best of 2012,” I mean songs that led to watershed moments in my musical thinking and listening, artists that now hold a significant gravity in my musical prioritizing, albums that will now become an inextricable part of my personal record collecting canon. When I say “Best of 2012,” I’m really not joking around.

Now that I have waxed philosophic on the nature of “Best of” lists, let’s talk about Angel Olsen. Angel Olsen is a Chicago-based songwriter who this year released her second LP called Half Way Home through Bathetic Records. Olsen has ties to Bonnie “Prince” Billy and The Cairo Gang. These are all facts and say nothing about the way that you’ll feel emotionally devastated after your first run-through of the record. Nor do they tell you how to anticipate the shear thrilling power and intensity of Olsen’s multifaceted voice, which ranges from sotto voce to full-blown operatic. In a single word, it is amazing. Half Way Home will certainly make its place in my “Best of 2012” list, but also in my daily listening habits. I’m sure that many will emphatically agree and be acting similarly.

Before her Folkadelphia concert on November 13th, we were able to record a few songs with Angel in stripped-down fashion — electric guitar and vocals – her configuration for this past tour. Sit back and click stream (or download), and take in Angel Olsen’s Folkadelphia Session.

Chicago singer-songwriter and Pitchfork darling Angel Olsen plays a Folkadelphia presents show at Studio 34 in West Philadelphia tonight. Olsen recently released her acclaimed debut Half Way Home on Bathetic Records. Joining her tonight is Philly space rock explorer Brendan Codey, and haunting singer-songwriter Meg Baird, playing her last show as a Philadelphia resident before moving to San Francisco (read our exit interview with Baird here). The show begins at 8 p.m., tickets and information can be found here. Below, watch Olsen’s music video for “Acrobat.”

The Tuesday Tune-Out continues at PhilaMOCA tonight with November’s curators, JUMP Philly Magazine, bringing Southwest Philly hip-hop collective The Astronauts to the gallery, along with a screening of the locally-produced documentary Tailor Made: The Bucky Davis Story. The all-ages show begins at 8 p.m., tickets and more information can be found here. Below, watch the music video for “High Top Fade,” a song they collaborated with Chill Moody on.

From indie rock goddess to disco siren, Mirah has covered a lot of ground in her twelve-year career (get an overview in our interview here). Recently relocated back to the east coast, she plays Johnny Brenda’s tonight with Mount Moriah. The 21+ show begins at 9 p.m., tickets and information can be found here. Below, watch Mirah’s 2010 music video for “The Forest.”

Long-standing Canadian five-piece The Tragically Hip return to Philadelphia tonight for a performance at The TLA. The band is touring in support of Now for Plan A, released in October. The all-ages show begins at 7 p.m., tickets and information can be found here. Below, watch the band’s clever video for “The Lookahead.”