Operelly: A Self Releasing Artist Exploring Her Sound

Growing up, Olivia had an immediate desire to sing, and in general, be loud. She described her kid-self as a “diva.” She grew up in a suburb of San Francisco called Pleasant Hill, a small town that not many people have even heard of. She took choir classes and piano lessons pretty early on in life but considers herself to be mostly self taught. Her family wasn’t very musical but she did have people around her that played music and loved theater. Simply put, she loved music and was always looking to pursue it. Now, she is a Junior at UC Berkeley as an Anthropology Major and plans to use this degree to specifically study ethnomusicology. Olivia is also known as the artist Operelly, and earlier on in her music career, Warren Peace. I recently got the chance to speak with Olivia over the phone about these two musical projects and her aspirations, ideas, and future endeavors. Whether you are familiar with her music or not, I think anyone can find a unique chance of approachability to the Operelly production, solo writing style, and personality.

Olivia first gave music a shot by writing. She would write a lot of short stories in elementary and middle school and these soon became poems which later turned into songs. She considers herself a writer over anything else and has written short stories and poetry for a while now. She first dove into writing songs on the garage band app, a free downloadable app that anyone can use to make music. The app allows you to simply use preset sounds and in app drums to create a song. She described herself laying in her bed late at night and figuring out as many musical patterns on the app as she could. She would then write lyrics and record her vocal melodies on a wired headphone mic. At a young age, this way of making music was a fundamental part of Olivia's initial learning process.

All of this playfulness and child-like storytelling was exemplified in her first few releases. She was able to use words and instrumentation to highlight her distinctive vocals and upbeat instrumentation even if it was just for fun at first. She describes her songs as being “mini poems with melodic values to them.” At 17 she first released an EP titled “Rat Poison Pies” under her first pseudonym Warren Peace. The 6 tracks tell youthful, mystical stories sonically and poetically. As she listens back she realizes that compared to where she's at now, those tracks feel like demos. They don't hold the same maturity as the music she has out now, partly because of using the garageband app and partly because simply she has grown up. The creation of the first EP under Warren Peace was a transitional period and led to the only full album released under any of Olivia's artist names. It is titled “The Widespread Hack.” According to Olivia, Warren Peace as a whole felt done after this album and she was ready to move on because of the energy and complexity of the album.
“‘The Widespread Hack’ was entirely me, fully a concept I had in my head and once I finished that concept I was like ok what now. It took me a while to make music again because I felt like I said a lot of things. I wasn’t writing as much and then when I started writing again I wanted a completely different persona.”

And that's when Operelly was born. Starting a new project allowed for a cohesive idea of sound and aesthetic to be created, as well as a place to start a new chapter of her life. Later on, she said she would be willing to go back to Warren Peace, maybe to release some demos or something, but because it's not necessarily something a listener would find unless they dig, she will continue to use it in a “demo” kind of way. She still said that no matter how much Warren Peace makes her cringe at the idea of her young self, she will always love it and it is a huge part of how she “figured music out.”

On the spotify page for Operelly you can see Olivia’s music newly embodied by a scenic background image and a pixelated black and white profile picture. Her three uploaded tracks, “Cozy”, “My Bell Rings” and “Encyclopedia” all give a similar theme to the page by pixelated, illustrated, and scenic album covers. She tells me “I equate them with the seasons. “Cozy” is summer, “My Bell Rings'' is fall, and “Encyclopedia” is spring.” Her bandcamp similarly gives a natural and colorful interpretation of her personality in relation to her music. The personality feels so welcoming and when diving into her discography you can feel her intent and dedication to Operelly.

We talked a lot about her approach to production. Right around the time Operelly began to form she started feeling more confident with Ableton Live and took advantage of its accessibility as a self releasing artist. Music making can feel intimidating, especially when the societal rules of music and social media can be competitive or esoteric. In my conversation with Olivia she was so modest and owned her inexperience with production. These attributes add to Operelly’s welcoming and approachable demeanor. It's inspiring because it's self made in all aspects of the word.

Olivia told me she has been recognized as Operelly two times in the bay, once by name and another time asked “you make music right.” As she described these scenarios to me she was in shock that there are people, strangers, who listen to her and enjoy her music. As a self releasing artist today, social media and the accessibility to streaming music can help new artists get traction for their music. I asked Olivia about promoting her music on her tik tok and instagram, “I don't love it but I feel like I have to. Everyone pops off on tik tok and reels. Tik tok is a mixed bag because I always feel so preachy and look at me. I’ve had minimal success on tik tok, and then through spotify I had that push and ended up on people's playlists, liking my music enough to show friends.”

There is a pressure, because everyone else is doing it, to put yourself and your music or art on social media. Anyone can download an app, upload content and gain a following. It's a simple and free way to promote music but it does come with the feeling of eyes being on your success and story. Music can be very personal and to let others see you side by side with your music can feel nerve racking. Operelly spoke to me about wanting the music to speak for itself and she doesn’t want to personally hide her face but she does want Operelly to stay a concept, an idea, not a person, not Olivia. This is hard to maintain when it's easy for this generation to dig into an artist and, if they wanted to, find out a lot about who they are.

I found Operelly when a friend of mine heard “My Bell Rings” on their Discover Weekly, an algorithmically curated playlist for spotify users to find new music. The spotify algorithm helps many smaller artists get recognized on a streaming platform. This is what Olivia was referring to when she mentioned a “push from spotify.” Many people are drawn to spotify for its attention to users' listening habits. The curation and attention can put a self releasing artist at a similar level to a signed and professionally produced musician. It's all about what the user likes to listen to and how they use spotify to find new music. Spotify also has playlists generated and categorized into genres when a lot of artists may not even know where their music fits. Olivia feels this way about her music, “I was asked what genre my music is and I think I said something dumb like trip hop. I guess I really should have said folky electronic. I guess pop. It's hard to be just one thing.” This goes to show that even when promoting music online or self releasing there is a pressure to perform within a trajectory or within guidelines. Olivia also used a good explanation in saying that as a musician you are most definitely also a listener, and when a listener you probably aren't listening to one genre. How can you expect an artist to release music under one genre?

For the track “My Bell Rings” Olivia uses a sample from Stereolab as well as a part of the song “Zebra” by Oneohtrix Point Never. When working with these samples she started by figuring out how they fit into a cohesive song and then began to apply one of her poems into a vocal melody. When people usually think of a sample, they think of how it began with Hip Hop artists sampling a beat or melody from a jazz or blues song. I think of J Dilla, Tribe Called Quest, or MF Doom, artists that would take a sample and change it to create something new, more their personal style. This is similar to what Operelly has done with her music. Today, artists across all genres use samples in their music. There's so much music already out there why not take from people that inspire you and make it your own. Samples can also be a way to discover and write music on a beginner production level. Olivia said, “I just don’t trust myself with presets anymore or plug-ins because I'm not the best producer.” But her music doesn’t feel like it’s missing anything, she is able to demonstrate her personality through samples she effectively chooses, her poetic style and her crunchy but bright sounding aesthetic.

“Cozy” took a turn for Operelly, she was able to record this song in a studio with people who have produced for other artists. She described the process as “making my dream come true.” Hudson and Zach, two producers who are known for working with the group Junior Varsity, met Operelly through some mutual friends and pretty immediately wanted to help her produce. She said it was a great match and it felt so right to bring this song into the studio with them. “Cozy” is definitely different from the other tracks Operelly has released. The production level changes, and the song does not use a sample unlike her other two songs. When writing Operelly mentioned her struggle to try and represent her poetry within a melodic context but in this case when first writing cozy then adding it to the guitar, she found a “ weird meter” that greatly enhanced the melody. “Random stressors of syllables arise from my poems and make a really really cool meter because when I just write a poem it's on paper and I’m not really thinking about reading it out loud.” This is such a unique process, instead of changing the poem to fit into song form Operelly instead focuses on making both the music and words fit together. As Olivia grows and Operelly grows alongside her she plans to work in the studio more and put out a full length project that she's really proud of.

Olivia and I wrapped up our conversation touching more on being an artist for yourself more than for anybody or anything else. She never hinted to the slightest feeling of fear when showcasing who she is and what being a musician means to her. As a small artist, Olivia is passionate in moving forward and exploring more depths of her sound in the future. She voiced to me that school does take up a lot of her time right now and she hopes to start working in a studio and collaborating more after she graduates. She left me with one tidbit of advice for me and for most definitely all of you “literally just show people your music. Don’t be nervous. Just play it because you're proud of it. That confidence works in a circle.” I would agree, music can feel very stand-still and lost sometimes but if your attitude towards it is meaningful and relaxed, the music will be too.