Angel Olsen announces new album, shares first single and plots UK tour – listen

Angel Olsen has announced details of her sixth studio album, and shared a video for its lead single.

‘Big Time’ will arrive on June 3 via her longtime label Jagjaguwar; you can see the Kimberly Stuckwisch-directed video for the first single from it, ‘All the Good Times’, below. She’s also announced a run of UK dates for October, with stops in Manchester, Edinburgh and Bath, as well as her biggest British date yet at London’s O₂ Academy Brixton.

The record follows 2019’s ‘All Mirrors’ and its 2020 reimagining, ‘Whole New Mess’. It was co-produced by Olsen and Jonathan Wilson in Topanga, California, at the latter’s Fivestar Studios, where they recorded and mixed it. The album chronicles a highly transformative time for the singer-songwriter, written largely over a period when she was coming out as queer, and experiencing queer love and heartbreak for the first time.

“Some experiences just make you feel as though you’re five years old, no matter how wise or adult you think you are”, says Olsen in a press release of this time of self-discovery. “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me”. Olsen came out to her parents whilst writing ‘Big Time’, and subsequently celebrated overcoming the hurdle with her partner and friends. Just three days later, her father died; at his funeral, she introduced her partner to her wider family.

Two weeks later, her mother became seriously ill, and herself died soon after, following a spell in a hospice. The record, accordingly, will explore both grief and self-determination; Olsen began the recording of it just three week’s after her mother’s funeral. Stuckwisch delved into such topics, too, for the ‘All the Good Times’ video, saying in the same press release: “Angel’s story is a gift. It allowed me to visually explore the universal themes of love, loss, and most importantly what holds us back from realising our true selves.”

Olsen’s UK dates will follow her huge US tour with Sharon Van Etten and Julien Baker this summer; ‘All the Good Times’ is her first new music since last year’s duet with Van Etten, ‘Like I Used To’. The full track listing for ‘Big Time’ is as follows:

1. ‘All the Good Times’
2. ‘Big Time
3. ‘Dream Thing’
4. ‘Ghost On’
5. ‘All the Flowers’
6. ‘Right Now’
7. ‘This Is How It Works’
8. ‘Go Home’
9. ‘Through the Fires’
10. ‘Chasing the Sun’

Angel Olsen, October 2022:

18 – London, O₂ Academy Brixton

19 – Bath, The Forum

20 – Edinburgh, Usher Hall

21 – Manchester, Albert Hall