Olivia Wendel knows how to drop her listeners into a specific moment. In Skipping Stones she has them standing forlorn on the edges of Walden Pond, a famous Massachusetts landmark. The lyrics and production create a melancholic and resolute feeling that ripples throughout the entirety of the track, like a stone skipping across the water. Skipping Stones was written in her mom’s attic in a small town in Vermont and later recorded in Brooklyn.

Skipping Stones

Second single off my album called Stop & Shop. Written about a weird interaction at a grocery store.

Stop & Shop

John Cusack is a song steeped in nostalgia, like it crawled right out of an early 00’s movie. The song has a classic upbeat pop rock feeling that works in parallel with the vulnerability of Olivia’s lyrics and her voice. The bridge section at 2:44 is an homage to those classic montage scenes where our protagonist goes running through the streets or the airport to catch that person who is getting away from them. Written at the start of quarantine, this song was inspired by the deep isolation Olivia felt and the comfort she found in watching old movies starring John Cusack.

John Cusack

Olivia Wendel originally wrote “Portland” in 2018, pre-pandemic while riding the 1 train home from her restaurant job. During the shift, a customer asked her if she’d ever been to Portland Oregon, somewhere they thought she would really enjoy. This song was her response to that conversation and the feeling of wanderlust she felt while watching the sun go down over the Hudson River as the 1 approached 125th street. Now in 2021, as New York City begins to emerge out of quarantine, the song resonates completely differently for Olivia. It’s a song that finds beauty in the places we call home, while longing for the possibility of traveling and getting lost in a new places. Recorded last summer almost entirely remotely, producer Jeff Peters and Olivia worked to achieve a production that is buoyant and hopeful, while allowing the melody line to wander around and explore.

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