While being an artistic triple threat, working as the artist, songwriter and producer for this EP, Olivia Morreale has the lightheartedness and charisma of a real star.
Raised in New York, she started her career by singing classical music and musicals. However, she attributes her musical light-bulb moment to her time sneaking into the city’s underground jazz clubs: “That was the first community that I really connected with; I think.” She says: “It felt like ‘oh everyone is working together!’ and they’re really all here because of their love for music”.
Olivia found her love for songwriting during her time in the jazz/pop programmes at USC’s Thornton School of Music in LA, where she mainly produced acoustic RnB pieces. Now, she is putting out her latest EP: ‘SPACE DREAMS’. This includes her three previous singles: ‘NO ANSWER’, ‘PARASOMNIA’, and ‘Another Moon’ as well as the brand new track ‘Matter of Time’.
The EP, created in collaboration with producer, songwriter, and friend Eli Koskoff, is a self-described amalgamation of vibes and sounds that break through the classic ‘music genre’ division. She says that “the use of the synth was an experiment that we did but I guess we were more groove oriented than sticking to a genre”.
When discussing the process that lead to the production of the EP, she states that it started as separate songs not meant to be connected by a theme: “It’s a project I co-wrote with my friend Eli Koskoff, we were kind of just using all the songs to learn how to write together and learn how to produce, but towards the end we realised that they all had the same sort of vibe.”
The EP was ultimately shaped around the common theme of a dream state, extending this to her music videos with vaguely confusing imagery: “We wanted to make it off-centre, almost normal but then, you know, Barney the dinosaur appears to create that dream like confusion.”
Another big part of the artistic process behind the EP comes from Olivia’s collaboration on both music videos. She believes that “other people’s creativity is a gift to everyone, so I think it’s cool when someone’s style is adjacent to yours even within different art forms”
On the PARASOMNIA music video, the reigns of bringing Olivia’s vision to life were in the hands of the director, Sammy King, and their producer. However, during the filming of Another Moon, the environment created was looser and perhaps more inventive. This can be attributed to her working with the director, and her best friend, Amanda Prager where the two went without a plan to an abandoned beach and just let creativity lead them: “I love collaborating, it’s my favourite thing just because your idea becomes real, for better or for worst.”
While her current music has us in a synth lead dream state, Olivia will bring intensely different vibes to her next EPs. With singles and videos already lined up to come out in the next couple of months, she truly is an artist to watch out for!
You can check out Olivia on her social media platforms below!