Following four critically praised singles, ‘Hugs’ is a tapestry of songs that invites the listener into the embrace of Olive’s unique sonic world. From start to finish, each song is stripped of all trivialities. It is songwriting at its most raw and vital, where every moment of sadness, wistfulness and honesty is earned. Performing each track entirely solo, Olive has demonstrated her versatility within limitation, embracing and commanding the sonic landscape as her own.

Album opener ‘Get Lost’, sets the tone for the album by introducing Olive’s distinct mix of jazz and folk with a pastoral round of cascading voices, a feature that continues in follow-up ‘Mother Nature’. Both ‘Mother Nature’s’ and ‘Murmurations’’ prosody propel the listener to the heart of their themes; a desire to convene and reunite with nature and its rhythms. ‘Finding Home’ changes pace, highlighting Olive’s background in jazz distinctly in its vocal runs and extended harmony. At the album’s halfway point, ‘I’m Gunna Choose’ is filled with a building tension, both in content and delivery. The enjambment of the verses, married with a step-wise melody, capture the malaise of being trapped in repetitive habits of isolation and self-doubt, only for the choruses to burst in as a promise to choose a path away from loss. ‘My Seeds’, comes as the response.

Via a gospel-inspired melody, Olive creates a vow to care and nurture; singing as if to another but also as a reminder to herself to take care. ‘Soggy Tuesday’ is a carefree and youthful song that captures the mindful moments when one can simply be as the world continues to move. ‘Maybe It’s Time’ and ‘Feeling Queer’ are Olive at her most vulnerable. At once both universal and unique to her own experiences, Olive captures a highly assured vulnerability that is reserved only for the most accomplished song-writers and performers. The album closes with ‘Lost’, the bookend to its opener with the theme returning only to bloom in a fuzz of delay and reverb.

Throughout the album, Olive draws comparisons to artists such as Laura Marling, Snowpoet, Adrienne Lenker and Norah Jones. The album is out now and was engineered and produced by Sam Barnes (AhGeeBee, Part Time Signals, Boy Azooga).