Review: Olivia O./Dead Calm @ The 4th Wall 2/19
Review by Sydney Spottiswood
Photo credits: Michael Cully
Snippets of found footage and RGB-saturated computer graphics coagulate in a lava lamp motion on the front screen of an Arlington, Mass. theater Wednesday night. The 4th Wall–an amalgamation of cinema, concert venue, and ice cream parlor based in Capitol Theatre–hosted indie-electronica band Lowertown’s Olivia O. with support from Dead Calm, the same artist behind slowcore project “sign crushes motorist,” on the last night of their east coast co-headline tour.
The audience coalesced in huddles of camo pants and fur-trimmed boots in the ice cream parlor-turned-waiting area, with one guy even recording the parlor’s fish tank (which was the spitting image of those Frutiger Aero aquarium lamps from the 2000s) with his Nintendo 3DS… as he’s about to go see an Olivia O. show. It’s an internet indie kid’s dream.
Before the show started, Olivia O. could be spotted floating up and down the center aisle with her equipment, while her co-headliner–but at that moment, simply her boyfriend–trailed behind. The masterminds behind the night’s visuals were on the house left, huddled around a sticker-laden projector and their laptops: two people in vibrant screen-printed sets as eclectic as their visual storytelling.
Olivia O. started off her set with “One Hit Wonder” from her most recent album “No Bones, Sickly Sweet.” Her vocals balanced between softly airy and grittily strong as she strummed on her guitar, under the watchful eye of a stuffed toy monkey she brought onstage right before her debut. There was a collective quiet before the theater erupted with applause.
Although the setlist was all original material, her sound that night felt renovated, largely due to the appearance of a classical guitar instead of her go-to guitar. She attributed this change in precedent to her usual instrument breaking after her last show in New York City.
“This is an interesting little special-edition show,” she joked. “I hope my swag points will be up as much as they usually are.”
The stand-out theme of the night was her use of live-loop recordings as the background support of her performance. In transitioning between each song, Olivia layered vocal incantations, flute notes, pick scraping, and rinsing bells in oscillations around her microphone, creating loops of sound to foretell the track to come.
Olivia’s charm was especially channeled during “Hole,” where she held a call-and-response with the theater during the chorus. Although it was a Wednesday night in a frigid Mass. suburb, the energy of her fans was palpable.
To round out her set, Olivia O. performed “Hickory,” a song off her 2023 album “Everyone is a Light.” With a characteristic live loop recording, she blended various guitar scrapings with crooning intonations which served as a support against her vocals. Her strumming increased in intensity towards the end of the song as she layered the sound blankets of reverb and other effects from her ME-80 processor. Croons morphed into screams. A standing ovation followed.
After a brief intermission, Dead Calm started off his set with a bang by dousing himself with purple Axe body spray as a method to ‘get in character,’ he said. The scent cloud (unfortunately) wafted into the crowd he gathered around the stage mic. But those who were in the splash zone totally ate it up: synthetic black pepper coconut and all.
His cover of Alex G’s “Change” was the highlight of his set, where he took a more folky, warm rendition on the track, characteristic of his own work. Later, he suddenly crumpled onto the ground—curled up as a dead bug—in a fall that toed a fine line between accidental and intentional.
“Wait… is he, like, okay?” someone asked behind me. But, like clockwork, Dead Calm continued to sing while flat on the ground, fully immersing himself in the song amidst a background of neon TV static.
The night culminated with “Oh My God,” a track in collaboration with screamo band Widowdusk off of Dead Calm’s 2023 album, “Accept.” Like his co-headliner, Dead Calm also encouraged the theater to join his vocals, with screams of “Oh my God” reverberating in communal catharsis. Olivia O. emerged from the crowd to go back onstage, and the pair thanked Boston for being the finale of their tour following an onslaught of applause. My throat still hurts to this day.
Special thanks to Miguel, my roommate and certified concert buddy, for helping me confirm the setlist.