Oly

Oly's music career started at the age of 2 when she used to write songs for her mother on a toy piano.

"[My mom] thought I was just being a little kid, like 'La, la, la,' you know, just singing whatever," Oly recalls, "but then I would sing the same song over and over again and she started to think, 'Wait a minute-that's a song.'"

Fast-forward two decades. After playing guitar and bass in indie rock bands throughout her teens and early twenties, Oly returned to working by herself. "Considering I was writing everything like drums and bass and vocals, it just kind of became normal to play alone," she says. When her first guitar, a Danelectro Silvertone, was stolen, Oly was too sad to buy another one, so she turned to the keyboard for solace. "I felt like I was getting engulfed by cock rock, which is the stupidest thing to say, but all my friends were always raving about guys and their guitars and I was getting tired of it," she says, laughing.

Encouraged by her jazz vocal teacher and by singer and songwriter Cody Chestnutt, whom she met briefly at Miami Beach's annual Winter Music Conference, Oly began performing her new solo music for larger audiences. After gaining a following for her live and DJ sets, the south Florida native moved to Chicago, where there were more opportunities for shows and she could focus on writing. Since relocating, Oly has opened for M83, DJ Spooky and one of her favorite bands, Dat Politics. She's also collaborated and toured with Deceptikon and has worked on songs for?Taiwanese artist Mochipet and French musician Khoral.

Oly's self-released debut, A Hot Hooray, is hot indeed. Recorded in her own home studio in Chicago and at noise master Rat Bastard's in Miami with production assistance from Ed Prence (such as the IDM-influenced reverse drum loop on "Swallow"), the five-track EP juxtaposes Oly's pure, child-like voice and merry melodies with heavy beats, synthesizers and organic instrumentation. Using a Korg Electribe sampler, a Yamaha keyboard, melodicas and audio software, Oly creates songs about love and having fun with atmospheric interludes and outros, like her lo-fi a cappella recording of an Ella Fitzgerald-inspired ditty.

The songs rarely last longer than two minutes and her lyrics are comprised of fleeting emotions and abstract images, which she gathers from various notebooks. "If I'm going for a specific feeling, there will be like five pages facing me where the writing has the same feeling and I'll take from everything and make a concise lyric for the song," Oly says. "Endless Not Aimless" is a kind of motto for romance and life while "Dead Woman," on which she cryptically sings, "The more I sink into the ground, the more I say your name," is a joyous tune about unrequited love. "You kind of die a little when someone doesn't return love to you," she explains. "Crushes are always gonna haunt you."

On the other hand, "No Money Fun" shows Oly's silly side. Prompted by an interview in which actor Mike Myers talked about his father's love of free activities, like watching airplanes take off, Oly wrote a song about her favorite form of "no money fun": a game of Man Hunter at Miami International Airport (MIA). "[It's] basically the adult Hide and Go Seek," Oly says. "We [did it] with costumes so the two teams wouldn't recognize each other. We seriously wore wigs and trench coats, and I once went as a Japanese tourist, so I had a bunch of cameras." After 9/11 Oly and her friends had to stop because of increased security. "I think we'd get arrested running around the airport like that," she says. words: Amber Drea