by Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)
Olivia W-B (Rong, guitar, vocals) wrote Minis in a garage one day and recorded it with Nikita Manin (clarinet) and Andrew Jones (bass) in a living room the next. The trio’s unfettered fifteen minute effort contains seven tracks stemming from similar ideas and mindsets. Living up to its name, each miniature feels like a piece of songwriting occurring in real time. Minis offers lucid melodic moments where every musician is in the mix, each player threading the needle of harmony and discordance.
Olivia W-B and Nikita Manin level on nearly every track; by a string on “Half,” hand in hand on “Tube.” Opener “Plate” finds the duo shadowing one another’s melodies, a curious introduction before “Pig” sets in, where you can really hear all three instruments begin to speak to one another. Anchored by Andrew Jones’ life-breathing underbelly, drilling six-strings and woodwind trills thrash like a pair of wacky inflatable tube men. The double bassist holds these moments down, containing W-B and Manin’s volatile movements with warming, low-tone certainty. There are no words to “Pig,” but I feel it’s the track in which all three musicians best express themselves and their role on the record.
Minis follows that “one-long-song” kind of sequencing and it’s so effective. It’s like tipping back a tube of candy-coated chocolates, melting them together, and biting down for a whole new experience. If you had to break a bit from the batch, “Plate” is killer and “Half” hits especially hard. Here is a line from “Half” I’ve been chewing on since July: “I grew up skeptical of the condition that/I had to learn to discern all perspectives from facts.” By the time “Half” comes down, Minis achieves its sweetest bits, and it’s as close as Olivia W-B get to wistful.
Olivia W-B hits like freak-lounge jazz, acoustic metal and hardcore riffing off art pop. A “collage” effort, it makes sense each part of Minis occupies a whole, just as each influence in style and tone holds its place within each song. With excellent sequencing and serious chops, Olivia W-B stitch Minis together like expert patchwork.