The project of multi-instrumentalist and studio engineer Greg Olley, Strangely Enough deals in indie rock and synth-heavy indie pop soundscapes that soothe the soul and nourish ear drums.
The Melbourne-based artist has been crafting Strangely Enough tracks since 2017, with a couple of previous singles (2017's 'Change' and 2018's 'Graceville') worthy of your next indie playlist.Now Greg is ready to deliver his debut EP, 'Stories You Tell Yourself', featuring four beautiful tracks that explore underlying themes of existential exploration, desire and self-pity.
"When I'm writing a song it becomes like a little world that I inhabit for a while," Greg says.
"I try to write honest things that I think are true about myself or the world around me, and when I strike on something I like I stick to it and repeat it over and over.
"The title for the EP is kind of a reminder to myself that no matter how many times I sing these songs or repeat these ideas, they're just stories I tell myself. Just ideas in my own head about myself and the world I live in."
Here, Olley details some of the thoughts and inspirations that were occurring as he wrote each song featured on the 'Stories You Tell Yourself' EP.
"'Stories You Tell Yourself' is about knowing who you are, what the world is about and how you fit into it. These are all really deep, and perhaps unanswerable questions. The only thing to do is to make up stories to fill that gap.
"You tell yourself (or someone else tells you) stories about your identity, about what's moral and amoral, what the purpose of your life is.
"These are really powerful and fundamental parts of life, but there's no guarantee that it's actually the truth, and yet it's the closest thing we have."
Long Time Coming
'Long Time Coming' was written when I was feeling one part of my live ending and other beginning.Most of the time you don't really notice this change, you just wake up two years later and realise you're in a different place and are maybe a different person to who you were before.
I had just finished my music degree, I was about to move cities and I was starting to make different choices. At the same time I felt so clear about who I was, like I was a stone sculpture that was about to be smashed to make way for something new.
Are You More?
'Are You More?' is all about the feeling that we are living through history right now.Sometimes it's easy to feel removed from things that happened in the past, like you're living in some totally different world, but history is happening and we are living through it.
Importantly, there are a lot of really terrible things happening right now that will be looked back on with sadness and confusion in the same way that we look back on sad and terrible parts of our history.
Hush
This song is about the feeling of indulging in your darkest moods. Maybe it's just a fancy way of describing self-pity but there's a weird feeling of freedom when everything has gone to sh.t and you're left totally alone.It's unhealthy but sometimes darkly pleasurable feeling completely independent even if you are in a hole you've most likely dug for yourself.
I Want To Know
This song is about the desire to leave behind all responsibilities, cut all ties and venture out into the wild knowing full well that there are dangers that will probably hurt you.The lyrics play with the extreme version of this scenario where not only have you left everything behind, but in fact your old life is destroyed and you're free to struggle along with no obligations, free to discover what's over the horizon.
