Raw Emotion & A Beautiful Debut: Listening to OLYMPIA's 'Have You Ever Been In Love?' (EP)
Five songs, five emotional weather systems, and one artist responsible for every note, word and production choice.
OLYMPIA's debut EP, Have You Ever Been In Love?, is built like a journey, moving from heartbreak through desperation and longing to happiness, and finally to surrender. As a first statement from an independent artist, it is remarkably complete.
The London-based singer-songwriter and producer wrote, produced, arranged, funded and performed the whole project herself. That level of control gives the record its distinctive intimacy. Nothing here has been softened by committee or polished into blandness, and the vulnerability on display feels earned rather than staged. She describes the EP as the concept of the journey of falling in love, a path made up of relationships, pain and loss that leads, eventually, to love as the final destination. Heartbreak, in her telling, is not the end of the story but a necessary part of finding the person who is meant to stay.
There is a refreshing, old-fashioned romanticism running through the music. Inspired by timeless songwriting and Greek poetry, OLYMPIA sets out to bring romance back into a world she sees as increasingly casual in matters of the heart. You can hear that in the emotional directness of the project, which favours feeling over fashion.
Her backstory adds real weight. She grew up on a small Greek island with few artistic opportunities and always felt a little out of place. At nineteen she moved to England alone, barely speaking the language, and spent her first years of study teaching herself English while developing her songwriting. At Leeds Conservatoire she reached the final of The Voice of Greece and came third. Major-label offers followed, but she turned them down to protect her artistic vision.
After graduating in 2023 she settled in London, couch-surfing and working to fund her music, and this May she sold out her launch show at The Water Rats. "Every detail, every sound, every choice was made with love and care," she says. Across five tracks, you can hear it.
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