Adele Oliver—

Western Australian singer–songwriter, Adele Oliver, has released a new single, the hauntingly perceptive, Angel.

From the get-go Adele’s vocal sounds effortless, floating atop a wiry acoustic guitar. The singer’s words invite you to listen carefully as she ruminates on a dysfunctional relationship. “It’s likely an accumulation of the frustration that I had felt in a number of romantic relationships, where I was being held to a higher standard than they were holding for themselves,” says Adele of the song’s origin.

“I’m stepping off this pedestal back down to earth, You’ll never find a perfect girl,” she declares in the song’s second verse, a section which almost never came to be. “For a while the song had a different second verse that wasn’t quite clicking. When we were in the studio working on the arrangement, I quickly penned another second verse that felt a bit truer to what I was trying to convey.”

The track centres around the irrationality of chasing the “perfect girl,” painting angelic metaphors over an alt-country soundscape. With James Newhouse in the producer’s chair, Angel found its wings in his family home and studio in picturesque Bunbury. The careful arrangement breathes with Adele’s words. “James really has a knack for considering where to leave space in a recording and where to add something that will elevate the song.”