By Molly Tursi
Staff Writer
To create music is a relentless labor of love. Every artist breathes so their music can live, lovingly imbuing each piece with a fragment of their own soul. As music is passed down from generation to generation, each soul within gives the next artist the kiss of life.
Basking in the glory of soul is the 26-year-old British singer-songwriter Olivia Dean.
Graced with a sonorous voice and rhythmic melody that harkens back to artists like Amy Winehouse and Lauryn Hill, the singer has won the affections of jazz, soul, R&B and pop fans alike — a feat seldom accomplished in the modern sphere of music.
Dean’s anticipated sophomore album, “The Art of Loving,” was released on Sept. 26. Inspired by bell hooks’ book “All About Love,” Dean explores love as an art rather than an instance. Through twelve resonant tracks, the album lyricizes the essence of love on a granular scale.
The album opens with “The Art of Loving (Intro),” a ruminative reconciliation with a broken relationship. The intro establishes Dean’s throughline of the album, reiterating the famous adage, “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” The singer references Beauty and the Beast with the lyric, “‘Gotta throw some paint / That's what Belle would say,” a delightful yet somber nod to a fairy-tale motif embedded in the album.
Released as a single in May, “Nice to Each Other” has become a familiar favorite and an inseparable component of the album.
The song contemplates the durability of a relationship and if an irresolute love is worth the plunge. Throughout the refrain, Dean wonders if they could be nice to each other, but wrong for each other, insinuating that being right for each other is out of the picture. “Nice to Each Other” primes listeners for the album’s analytical appraisal of love and showcases Dean’s talent as both a honed songwriter and musician.
Dean flows into the empowering “Lady Lady,” an incisive representation of self-growth and the cyclical emergence from past turmoil. Dean exalts the femininity involved in adapting to the divine sway of the universe, proclaiming that change must be grown into. Dean’s voice melds with the velvety instrumentals to produce an immersive sound that echoes the depth of the song.
The fourth track on the album, “Close Up,” revisits an indecipherable love that draws Dean close up, despite the insincerity of the relationship. The song exudes the concurrent vitality of jazz and sorrow of R&B, a sound faintly reminiscent of the late Winehouse. Similar in their sonic elements, the following track, “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” beckons to the buoyancy of jazz and delivers with sparkling verve.
“Let Alone The One You Love” returns Dean to a pensive state of mind as she languishes over a profound love she toiled to save but failed to mend. The song is succinct yet Dean’s vocals are unhindered, leaden with a searing ache that lingers long after the song ends.
Released as the third single off the album, “Man I Need” is Dean’s supplication for transparency in a relationship. The song opens with the repetition of, “Talk to me, talk to me,” a sentiment that cascades into the frustration of romantic ambiguity. Still maintaining her jazz and R&B style, Dean’s blended musicality shines throughout the song as she welcomes in a trace of pop.
“Something Inbetween,” “Loud,” and “Baby Steps,” coalesce into a trio, as Dean sings of the reluctance to leave a relationship that has made her feel diminutive and the chasm of silence that remains thereafter. “Baby Steps” keenly hoists Dean back on her feet, emphasizing the importance of learning to nurture yourself, even after a fallout of love.
Dean braces her avowal of love as an art with the delicate track “A Couple Minutes,” wistfully professing “Love's never wasted when it's shared.” The singer colors in the many shades of love as she concludes the album with “I’ve Seen It,” prompted by the notion that love is a ubiquitous nature of life.
Lending her soul to the sensation of her music,“The Art of Loving” is Dean's labor of love. With two albums in her repertoire, the singer has already defined her career as an affirmation that the fruits of love and art are manifold.
