What we've been listening to over the last couple days? Oh just Oliva Dean's new album MESSY
Fast-rising UK soul-pop star Olivia Dean today releases her long-awaited and highly anticipated debut album Messy via Island Records. Featuring the singles ‘Dive’, ‘Danger’, ‘UFO’, ‘Carmen’, ‘The Hardest Part’ (with Olivia recently sharing a special new version featuring Leon Bridges) Olivia Dean’s debut album Messy cements her as one of the most original and versatile voices in UK pop. Crafting classic yet conversational hooks with genre-fluid tinges, she’s honed a way of exploring universal themes of love, loss and everything in between with razor-sharp but open-hearted storytelling.
Of the making of Messy, Olivia shares: “Going into making the record, I'd just done this ‘Growth’ project. And for ages, I was like, well, my debut album needs to be what I've grown into, I need to have the answer. And that really confused me for a while. Then I realized, I'm always going to be growing. So this doesn't have to be a destination, it's just where I’m at now… It's funny because I think it’s the most fine-tuned I've got my sound to be, but also the most carefree I've been in actually making music… some of it’s quite vulnerable but it was just made out of pure fun and joy and unbotheredness.”
Today Olivia also shares an intimate handheld captured live performance of the album’s title track ‘Messy’, which showcases Olivia’s rich vocals and intimate songwriting. It was shot by Olivia’s close friend Sirus Gahan at sunset in a field in South London with her band. WATCH HERE.
Following a triumphant weekend at Glastonbury festival - where she met Elton John, a continued champion of hers who said "I think she’s a big star … she’s a fabulous singer, she’s beautiful, she’s got that personality that really shines through" - and her first, sold out US headline show Olivia embarks on a run of intimate acoustic performances, signings and Q&As across the UK, plus two celebratory release day shows at London’s Scala today.