Ears Wide Open: Olivia Kaplan

Kevin Bronson on January 11th, 2018

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Singer-songwriter Olivia Kaplan describes herself as a “keen emotional note-taker,” and what the Los Angeles native inventories on her sophomore EP “At the Seams” is rich in sagacity and musicality. The follow-up to 2014’s “Goddamn I Miss You,” released after returning to L.A. after the time she spent studying music in Montreal, “At the Seams” was produced with subtle flourishes by Adam Gunther (with whom she has collaborated in his experimental project Dzang). Kaplan’s lustrous voice (not to mention overall sensibility) often recalls Aimee Mann. And she does not reserve her askance glances for her other halves. “This Is What I Do” confesses to her own recklessness with relationship currency; “Barely Above” floats in and out of emotional limbo; and “Hear/Here,” with its lap steel, aches with the desperation that comes from feeling hopelessly disconnected from the person sitting right across the table from you. “Thought I could tell you with a stare / but you were looking over where,” Kaplan sings. She dedicates the songs to “anyone who’s working to fix all the tears in the fabric,” and indeed her diaries make a nifty cheat sheet.

||| Stream: “This Is What I Do”