A rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative musicianship, the songs of Tiny Ruins are etched into the memories of crowds and critics worldwide. Traversing influences that cross genre and era, the artistry of Hollie Fullbrook and her band spans delicate folk, lustrous dream pop. Production by David Lynch, Olympic Girls bring ebullient psychedelia to the album.
More thoughts on the album (& many thank-yous) to follow…but for now I leave you to tackle these 11 songs, while I get some sleep in time for an early train to London!
New Zealand band Tiny Ruins have shared the fourth single from their forthcoming album Olympic Girls, out February. 1st on Ba Da Bing Records. It’s called “Holograms” and arrives with a beautiful new video,
“Holograms” follows previously released singles “School of Design,” “Olympic Girls” and “How Much.” Tiny Ruins, which originated as frontwoman Hollie Fullbrook’s solo songwriting project, has always been a nesting place for spare, delicate melodies and verses full of natural imagery and big ideas. But there’s nothing delicate about this latest batch of singles: “Olympic Girls” is warm, full and unexpected—a lively flute finds a home next to electric guitar; Fullbrook’s smooth alto sighs along with clashing cymbals.
“Holograms” is just as beautiful, and it’s one of Fullbrook’s biggest ideas yet. “Holograms is a conversation in a way, where one person posits the idea that technology will increasingly connect us,” she said in a statement. “That we will not just be emotionally or mentally connected, but that our bodies will transcend physical and mortal bounds via technology. That we can bring someone back.”
“How will we come back?” she sings. “Rise and shine as holograms?” It’s an eerie concept, one Tiny Ruins execute beautifully in the accompanying visuals. In the clip, Fullbrook and her bandmates (bassist Cass Basil, drummer Alex Freer and guitarist Tom Healy) search for meaning in a hypnotic model of the solar system. Fullbrook also shared the inspiration behind the video:
For the video, I wanted a sense of longing for this sparkly, colorful other realm, where everyone is connected, in unity. The director Martin Sagadin and I both started out talking about how the song called for a sense of sci-fi, which led us to planets, which led to the idea that we would build planets out of lanterns. This storyline arose where my character is trying to communicate or reach out to another field of existence, via technology. But we felt that the technology could be a bit old and not quite “of this time”—we were inspired by Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” video, or the TV series Maniac, in the sense that technology is kind of old and defunct, and there’s a timelessness or lack of specificity as to time. The idea of the video, is that I have a vision of this place I am trying to reach … I gather up particular objects that I feel will connect me to this place. But in the end, it’s futile—I try to reach the planet that appears through the wall, with all my technology revved up, and … it collapses in front of me.
The Fat Angel Sings 