First Listen: Ash Olsen 'Low'

Always looking ahead to the next thing definitely comes with the challenges of not fully being able to enjoy the good moments. Now with ‘Low’ Ash Olsen allows New Wave to talk to her about the single and what it means to her. We chat with her via zoom and see her in her studio.

Considered one of the most exciting rising talents in the Norwegian scene, listening to Norwegian artist Ash Olsen for the first time via her track ‘Low’ the first thing I noticed was how Ash softly sang with a gentleness that was reassuring and warm complimented by a simple acoustic guitar looped rift. Drawn in by the addictive hook, the lyrical content explores a depth of emotion.

The initial reaction

“ I’ve actually been sitting on that song for three years now", Ash beginnings, "So I’ve been waiting a long time to release it so it feels good that it’s finally out. I’ve been sitting on a lot of music, especially on this album that’s coming out so I guess I’ve been ahead a little bit. You can’t just release everything at once, so I had to prioritise."

"But it’s been hard sitting on it because I honestly feel that I’m ahead again now. So like right now I’m making different music but this song is one of my favourites out of all the songs I’ve ever made."

Artist Perception

“ I think that this song is the first time that I actually opened a new door regarding the type of music that I make. I ended up experimenting with singing a lot because mostly before I was just rapping and when I wrote (‘Low’) that song opened a lot of doors. I was very much writing from my heart, the emotions that I felt at that time, it was all very honest and real.”

Continuing she explains “I wrote the track from my perspective because the girl that I was with wasn’t in a good space at all and it didn’t have anything to do with me, and it was really hard to watch and feel that yeah, we’re defiantly drifting apart.”

"And even though you’ve tried you just realise that there is nothing that you can do you know? So I wrote about how that made me feel. I just hope that people can relate to it in their own way, I just think that’s the beautiful thing about music. That you don’t have to go through the exact same that I did for it to make sense.”

Visuals

The original accompanying visuals of the track were shot in the nighttime streets of LA, providing fleeting shots of Ash by herself before moving to street signs and crowds of people that empathise with the feeling of isolation that Ash feels.

Sharing her own thoughts on the process of making the video, Ash shares: “a couple of weeks ago we were in LA and we just filmed it in the streets of LA. We were already out there doing stuff and we realised that we needed."

However, Ash has shared a recent stripped down acoustic version of the track with the beautiful LA lights a meraged blur as her backdrop. The video empathises the feeling of vulnerability, that's reinforced by the slower tempo and emotive piano chords.

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