Angel Olsen announces ’80s covers EP ‘Aisles’


Angel Olsen has announced ‘Aisles’, a new EP of ’80s covers – you can hear her rendition of Laura Branigan’s ‘Gloria’ below.

The five-track EP is set to arrive on August 20 and will be the first release on Olsen’s new Jagjaguwar imprint somethingscosmic.

As well as taking on Branigan’s ‘Gloria’, the ‘Aisles’ EP also sees Olsen covering ‘Eyes Without A Face’ (by Billy Idol), ‘Safety Dance’ (Men Without Hats), ‘If You Leave’ (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) and ‘Forever Young’ (Alphaville).

Angel Olsen - 'Aisles' EP
Angel Olsen – ‘Aisles’ EP

Recorded in the winter of 2020 at Asheville’s Drop of Sun Studios with co-producer and engineer Adam McDaniel, Olsen explained in a statement that with ‘Aisles’ she “needed to laugh and have fun and be a little less serious about the recording process in general”.

“I know it’s not really in my history to do something unintentional or just for the hell of it, but my connection to these songs is pretty straightforward,” she added. “I just wanted to have a little fun and be a little more spontaneous, and I think I needed to remember that I could!”

Olsen has today (July 8) shared her version of Laura Branigan’s ‘Gloria’, which you can hear above.

“I’d heard ‘Gloria’ for the first time at a family Christmas gathering and was amazed at all the aunts who got up to dance,” Olsen explained about her connection to the track.

“I imagined them all dancing and laughing in slow motion, and that’s when I got the idea to slow the entire song down and try it out in this way.”

Last month saw Olsen and Sharon Van Etten perform their recent collaborative track ‘Like I Used To’ on US TV for the first time.