New Zealand singer-songwriter Hollie Fullbrook released her third record as Tiny Ruins last month. Titled Olympic Girls, the record is a kaleidoscopic quilt of ornate arrangements and instrumentation.
This is best displayed on today’s Song of the Day and the record’s title track, which features a meticulous finger-picked guitar line while the evocative lyrics tell the story of a conversation she had with a man on a 13-hour bus ride from Dallas to Chicago when she was a teenager. The ex-con told her about his time in prison, where he would watch the Olympics on TV with fellow inmates. “Oh you had your Olympic girls/ The frosted sheen of leotard twirls/ Running the vault and winning gold for the TV screen/ Before being led back to the cells.”
Tiny Ruins’ last record was 2014’s Brightly Painted One. Olympic Girls was produced in Auckland by guitarist Tom Healy and features her touring rhythm section of Cass Basil (bass) and Alexander Freer (drums). Watch the Charlotte Evans-directed video for “Olympic Girls” below.
