“I grew up on high energy, warm sounding songs that were really singable, stuff that makes you want to drive somewhere or hang out outside,” Olivia Reid told American Songwriter. “That’s where the concept for ‘Take in the View’ originally came from.”
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“Take in the View” is the newest single from the multi-talented artist, who is currently based in New York. A recent graduate of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU, Reid not only writes her own songs but is heavily involved in their production as well, co-producing this track with Jack Laboz in Los Angeles. A native of Northern California, Reid notes that her environment plays a role in her songwriting.
“I think the background environment of where I grew up is an influence to me,” she said. “This song is kinda poppy, but the production still takes in that earthy landscape. I find that it’s when I’m in the city that I write nature songs and I think it’s because I miss it. The environment I’m in gives the music different energies. ‘Take in the View’ is very me, but it also has that Los Angeles energy fused into it.”
The intentionality of her work blossoms on “Take in the View” as Reid weaves her voice together with poppy drums, folky guitars and a tasteful saxophone part — with the saxophones provided by Morgan Guerin (Esperanza Spaulding, Tyshawn Sorey).
“Lyrically, a lot of my ideas come from being alone with my guitar. As far as performance and melody go, a lot of that adapts to my production as I develop the song. I tend to treat each element like it’s a melody. I approach drums and basslines and everything stacked on top of each other as separate melodies that work with each other. The lyric melody usually ends up adapting a lot to what’s going on around me in the production space.”
The end result of that is something unique and exciting. Reid’s music straddles between many different genres but doesn’t firmly land in any, making her songs an organic expression of her artistic vision.
Listen to Olivia Reid’s new single “Take in the View” below:
