Exclusive track premiere of ‘Halma,’ taken from the upcoming album ‘Olimpiada’ by Olivares, slated for release on February 14th, 2025 via Broken Clover Records.

Olivares’ debut album is a dive into evolving soundscapes, blending electronica, dub, and ambient influences. Inspired by artists like Nicolas Jaar and Floating Points, the album transforms simple ideas into expansive, textured journeys. Collaborating with Vaz Oliver, Olivares crafts an immersive experience that invites listeners to explore new sonic territories, leaving a lasting sense of discovery.

<a href="https://olivares.bandcamp.com/album/olimpiada">Olimpiada by Olivares, Vaz Oliver</a>

“Synths have a strange soul of their own”

What inspired you to write and record this album separately from TUTUPATU? And how did it come together?

Olivares: It’s a Jekyll and Hyde situation: TUTUPATU feeds off live improvisation, responding to each other’s stimuli. It’s visceral, pulsing, loud, crunchy, and immediate. Olivares is brewed in dark places, with time to settle, growing at its own pace, with me wearing all hats: composer, improviser, producer, sound designer, fan, and critic. TUTUPATU is Dionysian; this album aimed to be more Apollonian.

Regarding how this album came together, funnily, its inception predates TUTUPATU. I was doing improvised music with TUTUPATU’s drummer. We both felt a bit trapped in our instruments and decided to get together to play anything but bass and drums (how we usually played together). That quickly turned electronic and sparked something, and soon after, a friend (Vaz Oliver, who added guitars to this album) dared me to do something with my sketches.

So I started to capture ideas, improvising over them and gathering resources, letting it take me where it may, without judgment on my side. Over time, it was clear that some tracks were clustering together—pieces that, while different from each other, orbited around the same star. At some point, the tracks became solid enough to withstand a more critical approach to mixing and sound design, and little by little, I was able to listen to them more as an outsider, an observer seeing how they unfolded and evolved. This album became its own entity—it came from me, but it’s not entirely mine somehow. I don’t recognize my own playing; it’s a strange third-person perspective, a hay fever dream.

How has your musical direction shifted over time, and what key moments or influences contributed to that evolution?

At 8, I was a good boy undergoing classical training, playing Chopin at piano recitals.
At 13, I quit music as I did not feel any connection to the classical repertoire I was learning.
At 15, I started connecting to a myriad of old vinyls found at home (Can, early Dub, 10cc, Eno, Velvet Underground, King Crimson…) and albums shared by friends (Massive Attack, Portishead, Fugazi…).
At 17, I picked up a bass and started playing in bands. Shortly after, a friend took me to a rehearsal space: We laid down a guitar plugged into a distortion pedal and a cranked Marshall 4×10 and spent the next hour fine-tuning the feedback noise. I was hooked.
At 22, all I wanted to do was loud, experimental, and unstoppable noise.
At 30, I started exploring sound design, recording, mixing, and playing with electronic instruments.
At 40, I’ve realized that there are many musical “me”s. I’ve been fortunate enough to explore many paths, but I have more interests than time. I’m now trying to find a way to balance it.

Who are some of your primary musical influences, and how have they impacted your songwriting and sound?

During the making of this album, I was obsessively listening to Nils Frahm’s ‘Spaces, Pole’s 1 2 3,’ Floating Points’ ‘Elaenia,’ Darkside, Popol Vuh, and Dawn of Midi.
However, influences are quite hard to pin down for me, as things you hear or play can come up again years later. For example, I might be playing a synth, thinking I’m very much inspired by the latest cool album I’ve heard, but in reality, I’m leaking out Danny Elfman’s Batman OST that moved me when I was just a kid, or the theme song of a kid’s show, elevator music, or anything else that simply stuck with me.

This album incorporates synthesizers in a prominent way. What inspired this shift in your sound, and how does it fit into the overall concept of the album?

I’ve always been a big fan of German experimental music from the ’60s/’70s. Stockhausen talked about how the synthesizer was the first musical instrument truly “free”—free from the historical and cultural baggage of traditional instruments, not constrained by anything other than its own circuits and routing. That idea always stuck with me.

So, when the time came to craft my own sonic universe, that was my first step: a simple analog monophonic synth. It then expanded in many directions, but the idea of starting from a blank sheet musically was very appealing. They also sound so cool. Synths have a strange soul of their own—a small singing ghost in the machine.

Can you share some insights into the gear and equipment that are crucial to your sound?

I love gear, and I love the second-hand market. That’s a dangerous combination! Luckily, I don’t develop attachments to gear too easily, so I usually buy, use, and sell gear quite quickly. On top of that, I usually process everything heavily, so I don’t think there’s a specific piece of gear that has imprinted the album too much.

Now, nerding out about gear, I must say that in this album, I’ve used heavy doses of Drumbrute, Minilogue, Electribe, Digitakt, Volcas, CR-78, OP-1, Nord, Deluge, MiniFreak, Minibrute, Roland SE-02 and Roland JX-03, Moog Murf, Vermona Retroverb, Sherman Filterbank, Enjoy Electronics Reminder, many effect pedals, and a ton of plugins, samples, and custom Max4Live stuff.

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