Olivia Anna Livki

Life

Olivia Anna Livki was born on April 2, 1988 in Opole, Poland and raised in Black Forest, South Germany. Her mother, a Polish singer, and father, a German electronics engineer, met in Jordan where they both were engaged professionally. At age 6, Olivia and her mother moved to her father's home-country and settled down in Black Forest, Germany. Within the next few years they changed their residence several times, eventually ending up in Villingen-Schwenningen. Olivia graduated from Gymnasium am Hoptbühl, VS in 2004. After half a year of directing-study at a filmschool she moved to Berlin and went on to study Film Studies, English Philology and Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin, which she finished with Bachelor of Arts in 2008. Having earned her first degree, Olivia began working full-time as a musician. Currently she lives in Berlin and works, depending on the task, in Berlin, at her studio near Warsaw, or (often long-distance) with engineers and artists from the US and UK. She regularly tours Europe.

Work and Career

From her earliest childhood on, Olivia showed a great interest in art and literature, yet especially music and motion picture. She began playing the piano at early age as well as taking part in school performances. Among her childhood idols were African American artist Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker and Dr. Dre and filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick. At age 10, Olivia wrote, directed and edited (as well as performed in) her first 45-minute-film "Die Erben", a parody of film noir and Hitchcock-classics. At age 16, she made an English-spoken short-documentary on Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (featured at Jugend-Medienfestival Berlin) as well as a Holocaust-shortfilm based on Janusz Korczak's "Ghetto Diaries", "Unbetitelt" which won her several festival-appearances and awards. During her study in Berlin she made the shortfilm "Origin of Species".

In 2009, Olivia finished her 3rd demo "The Smiling Face of Progress" and made two internet-videos: "Girl vs. City" (live-performance) and "Hologram" (stop motion-animation-video). In June she began playing her first concerts in Berlin, a short tour in NYC, New York followed in October and November. In 2010 she began sessions for her debut-album in Berlin. In order to fund the project she took part in a music talent-show on Polish television. Her appearance caused an overnight-hype on the internet and throughout the media. Her videos were watched by more than 300.000 people, the YouTube-video of her TV-performance of "Tel Aviv" by more than 180.000. Her demos were shared throughout the internet by fans of both alternative and mainstream origins.

The Name Of This Girl Is

In November 2011, the 9 track-concept-album (quoting classic concept-albums like Talking Heads' "Remain In Light" and Marvin Gaye's "What`s Goin On?") "The Name Of This Girl Is" was released. It was written, arranged and produced by Livki and mixed by Patrick Dillett and Ron Allaire. On the album and its artwork, Olivia also collaborated with Scottisch drummer Robin Thomson and graphic novelist Iain Sommerville. She designed the artwork (containing drawings by Sommerville) which shows characters from her songs, but also quotes movies, TV shows and themes of modern lifestyle and pop culture. The cover is a quote of Katsuhiro Otomo's "Akira", the booklet shows Olivia's head surrounded by drawings echoing Lisa Simpson, South Park, Franz Kafka, Pam Grier, an electronic dog. The album contains songs of which several had already been spread throughout the internet in their early demo-versions: "Hologram", "Tennis Rackets", "No Memory". Two other songs found on the album where known to Polish TV-viewers: "Tel Aviv" and "Abby Abby". The album was released on her own label L I V V and sold through her internet-shop. It was critically well received.

On the day of the album's release, Olivia opened for Lenny Kravitz in Torwar, Warsaw.

She performed in e.g. Berlin, London, Tokyo, NYC, Prague as well as numerous festivals, including OFF Festival 2011, Coke Live Music Festival 2011 and Soundrive 2012.

In July 2012, Olivia signed a license-contract with EMI. In September 2012, "The Name Of This Girl Is" was re-released as Extended Edition with 3 bonus tracks, and appeared in physical stores, accompanied by a promotional campaign.

Currently Olivia Anna Livki is working on her second studio album.

Musical style

Often described as a singer-bassplayer or a bassplaying singer, her music combines the unity of voice and solo-bass guitar (with little use of low tones and a strong emphazis on crunchy, distorted mid and high tones as found in the Postpunk-guitar) with complex electronic beats and samples, orchestral arrangements, melodic songs, elements of ethnic percussion and choirs consisting of the singer's multiplied own voice. She herself calls it "Global (or Global Village) Voice'n'Bass". Her influences include African American music (Blues, Gospel/Spiritual, Funk, HipHop), Artrock, Postpunk, Alternative-Pop, as well as elements of African, Indian, Indonesian and Middle Eastern music.

Studio albums

Singles

Music videos