''Whole New Mess'' is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Angel Olsen, released on August 28, 2020 on Jagjaguwar. Recorded by Olsen and engineer Michael Harris in a converted church, the album features tracks from her 2019 album, '' All Mirrors'', arranged in a more intimate style.

Recording

''Whole New Mess'' was recorded over ten days in October 2018 with engineers Michael Harris and Nicholas Wilbur. The pair worked in isolation in

Anacortes, Washington Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.Phil Elverum Philip Whitman Elverum (; born May 23, 1978) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and visual artist, best known for his musical projects The Microphones and Mount Eerie. Based in Anacortes, Washington, in the mid-2000s he began ...

, recording in a converted

Catholic church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Olsen would use the church's corridors to create a natural echo effect on her vocals. The album was recorded prior to Olsen's 2019 studio album, '' All Mirrors'', which features many of the same compositions in a different form: "When we made 'Whole New Mess'' I was still processing a lot of the songs, so for me, it’s harder to listen to this record than it is for me to listen to ''All Mirrors''. When I recorded ''All Mirrors'', other people had their hands in the pot, which separated me from the songs. I could get into them in a distant way. On ''Whole New Mess'' I’m feeling every feeling that they evoke."

Composition

The album was written following the collapse of a romantic relationship, with Olsen noting: "I was really depressed. I had no idea whether the songs were good. They were just about my life. I could have recorded them at home and kept them as demos, but I knew Michael

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was someone I could be depressed in front of, who would help me to explore it in different ways. It was such an emotional process."

Critical reception

The album was critically acclaimed upon its release. At

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, based on fifteen professional reviews, it received a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 83 out of 100.

Track listing

Personnel

* Angel Olsen –

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* Michael Harris – production,

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* Joe Lambert – mastering *

John Singleton John Daniel Singleton (January 6, 1968 April 28, 2019) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer. He made his feature film debut writing and directing '' Boyz n the Hood'' (1991), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for ...

– mixing * Miles Johnson – art direction * Kylie Coutts – photography

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2020 albums Angel Olsen albums Jagjaguwar albums