A rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative musicianship, the songs of TinyRuins are etched into the memories of crowds and critics worldwide. Traversing influences that cross genre and era, the artistry of Hollie Fullbrook and her band spans delicate folk, lustrous dream pop. Production is by David Lynch, 'Olympic Girls' bring ebullient psychedelia to the album.
Conceived in 2009 by songwriter Hollie Fullbrook to describe her solo output, the group has included Cass Basil on bass, Alex Freer on drums and Tom Healy on electric guitar for the past several years.
A group renowned for their electric dynamic live on stage, Tiny Ruins have toured the world many times over in solo and varied group formations. They have played stages across countless cities and states with Sharon van Etten, Calexico, the Handsome Family and more.
Hollie Fullbrook is no stranger to acclaim. Debut LP 'Some Were Meant For Sea' (2011) saw her name on billboards, playlists and blogs worldwide. Recorded by Fullbrook and producer Greg ‘J’ Walker (Machine Translations) in a small hall in South Gippsland, Australia, the album was voted 2011’s Album of the Year by BBC World Service arts and culture programme ‘World of Music’ and was a finalist for New Zealand’s Taite Prize in 2012.
Tours of New Zealand, Australia and Europe followed, with Fullbrook performing solo, and later as a duo with Cass Basil on upright bass, supporting The Handsome Family throughout the UK. The album’s clutch of “gorgeous vignettes” (BBC) put the artist on the map, and she took to the road from her home in New Zealand to tour extensively through the UK, Europe and North America – a passage repeated many times since.
Second album Brightly Painted One earned more accolades, championed by the New York Times, NPR and David Lynch, and winning Best Alternative Album at the New Zealand Music Awards in 2014. “An album of quiet, devastating beauty,” wrote Pop Matters. The album saw Fullbrook join forces with producer Tom Healy, whom, alongside long-time tourmate bassist Cass Basil and drummer Alex Freer, Fullbrook has worked and toured with ever since.
The lead track from the album is is the eponymous ‘Olympic Girls’, which starts with an acoustic guitar flourish, ushering the potent words of Tiny Ruins’ Hollie Fullbrook – “Stirring, shaken, all of us waking." The track is buoyant with a rolling energy. "Another day bolder / A love spell rushes you by.” Cascading electric guitars counterpoint with a razor-sharp post-punk edge as the drums and bass stampede along, Fullbrook urging an exhilarating shake-up of the status quo – as the chorus dictates, “We were only inches away / still have a long, long way to go.”
Album three, Olympic Girls, was produced by bandmate Tom Healy. Patiently built in the same underground lair (Paquin Studios at The Lab in hometown Auckland) as their previous record 'Brightly Painted One'. Whereas that was recorded in three short weeks, the new album was made over a drawn-out period of spontaneity and experimentation spanning a year, stridently reaching beyond Fullbrook’s formerly minimalist domain.
While spanning continents, Tiny Ruins won fans in critics, crowds and became a sought after collaborator. A New York recording session culminated in the EP 'Hurtling Through' (2015) with indie-rock legend Hamish Kilgour (The Clean), while 2016 single ‘Dream Wave’ was recorded and produced by award-winning cult filmmaker and musician David Lynch. Chosen by Lorde for the Hunger Games soundtrack blueprint she curated, Fullbrook teamed up with legendary filmmaker Lynch for the collaboration.
1. Olympic Girls
2. School of Design
3. How Much
4. Sparklers
5. Holograms
6 Kore Waits in the Underworld
7. Bounty
8. One Million Flowers
9. My Love Leda
10. Star, False, Fading
11. Cold Enough to Climb
Exclusively for Record Store Day Courtney Barnett releases a new track City Looks Pretty and for a limited time only you'll... View Details
'Tell Me How You Really Feel' is the second full studio album from the marvellous Courtney Barnett. It follows the double EP 'A... View Details
A rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative musicianship, the songs of TinyRuins are etched into the memories of crowds and... View Details
