{"id":46718,"date":"2025-02-23T23:34:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T04:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=46718"},"modified":"2025-02-23T23:34:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T04:34:19","slug":"review-olivia-o-dead-calm-the-4th-wall-2-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2025\/02\/23\/review-olivia-o-dead-calm-the-4th-wall-2-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Olivia O.\/Dead Calm @ The 4th Wall 2\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review by Sydney Spottiswood<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo credits: Michael Cully<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\u2013an amalgamation of cinema, concert venue, <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> ice cream parlor based in Capitol Theatre\u2013hosted indie-electronica band Lowertown\u2019s Olivia O. with support from Dead Calm, the same artist behind slowcore project \u201csign crushes motorist,\u201d on the last night of their east coast co-headline tour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s fish tank (which was the spitting image of those Frutiger Aero aquarium lamps from the 2000s) with his Nintendo 3DS\u2026 as he\u2019s about to go see an Olivia O. show. It\u2019s an internet indie kid\u2019s dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the show started, Olivia O. could be spotted floating up and down the center aisle with her equipment, while her co-headliner\u2013but at that moment, simply her boyfriend\u2013trailed behind. The masterminds behind the night\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Olivia O. started off her set with \u201cOne Hit Wonder\u201d from her most recent album \u201cNo Bones, Sickly Sweet.\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an interesting little special-edition show,\u201d she joked. \u201cI hope my swag points will be up as much as they usually are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Olivia\u2019s charm was especially channeled during \u201cHole,\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

To round out her set, Olivia O. performed \u201cHickory,\u201d a song off her 2023 album \u201cEveryone is a Light.\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u2018get in character,\u2019 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

His cover of Alex G\u2019s \u201cChange\u201d 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\u2014curled up as a dead bug\u2014in a fall that toed a fine line between accidental and intentional.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWait\u2026 is he, like, okay?\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

The night culminated with \u201cOh My God,\u201d a track in collaboration with screamo band Widowdusk off of Dead Calm\u2019s 2023 album, \u201cAccept.\u201d Like his co-headliner, Dead Calm also encouraged the theater to join his vocals, with screams of \u201cOh my God\u201d 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. <\/span>My throat still hurts to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Special thanks to Miguel, my roommate and certified concert buddy, for helping me confirm the setlist.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2013an amalgamation of cinema, concert venue, and ice cream parlor based in Capitol Theatre\u2013hosted indie-electronica band Lowertown\u2019s Olivia O. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21925,"featured_media":46719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525,1523,15],"tags":[2298,2297,2299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21925"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46720,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46718\/revisions\/46720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}