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Apr 20, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Kylie Coutts

Angel Olsen is releasing a new box set, Song of the Lark and Other Far Memories, on May 7 via Jagjaguwar. The set features Olsen’s albums All Mirrors and Whole New Mess, along with a bonus LP titled Far Memory and a 40-page book. Olsen has shared a new track from Far Memory, “Alive and Dying (Waving, Smiling).” It’s an orchestral version of “Waving, Smiling” from Whole New Mess which was recorded during the All Mirrors sessions, with string arrangements by Jherek Bischoff. The original version was much more stripped down. Listen to the new version below via a visualizer for it.

Olsen had this to say about “Alive and Dying (Waving, Smiling)” in a press release: “This song is all about chapters closing, and learning to let go of things I can’t understand. It’s very me—I will always nosedive into love, and suffering can definitely come with that. When I hear this version the strings really bring the song to its necessary bittersweet boiling point.”

Previously Olsen shared Far Memory track “It’s Every Season (Whole New Mess).”

“It feels like part of my writing has come back from the past, and another part of it was waiting to exist,” said Olsen when speaking of the new box set, which is limited to 3,000 physical copies, in a previous press release. In addition to alternate versions and remixes of songs from her previous two albums, Far Memory features a cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This.”

All Mirrors came out in 2019 and made it to the top spot on our Top 100 Albums of 2019 list. Whole New Mess came out the following year and was #39 for our Top 100 Albums of 2020.

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