Album Review: Liv.e Couldn’t Wait To Tell You Her Story

Experimental R&B artist Liv.e hypnotizes with a freewheeling debut record that weaves its fragmented pieces together into a singular artistic vision.

Written by Annie Lyons

Photo courtesy of Maya Patterson

“How many lives do you want to visit in this dimension? How many portals will you jump through for my attention?” Olivia Williams, aka Liv.e, wonders in Couldn’t Wait To Tell You…, her debut album released July 31. Glitchy vocal samples playing on loop in the background, at once retro and otherworldly, turn her questions into something more like a spell. For Williams, it’s not about hearing any one answer — it’s about the stories, the memories, the feelings that happen along the way. 

Pronounced simply as “Liv,” the Dallas-raised, Los Angeles-based artist first made waves with her 2018 debut EP, Hoopdreams, catching the ears of big names like fellow Dallas talent Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, and Earl Sweatshirt. The 22-year-old’s honeyed drawl and free-spirited approach to songwriting has even earned her more than a few deserved comparisons to Badu, but nostalgia’s merely a starting point. With Couldn’t Wait To Tell You, Williams blends a spectrum of timeless sounds, including classic soul, neo soul, ‘90s R&B, and hip-hop, into a forward-looking debut record that’s more than the sum of its influences. 

Couldn’t Wait To Tell You lives in an ambient dream world layered in staticky feedback and dripping with languid vocals. Full of warped samples, sunny drum loops, and funky keys, its 20 short songs vibrate with physicality and presence. Cuts like “Bout My Big Man Batter” and “How It Made Me Feel” have all the crackling intimacy of a well-worn VHS tape. It comes as no surprise that Willams’ production finds footing in vinyl samples inspired by her Dallas upbringing and time as a DJ at local label Dolfin Records. 

Williams imbues her soundscapes with further texture by wielding her voice as another sound to experiment with. She shapeshifts with ease, playing with vocal layering and distortion as she interchanges between singing, speaking, and rapping. “Stories with Aunt Liv” and “Cut to the Chase” are enigmatic slices of spoken-word. In “How She Stay Conflicted...i Hope He Understands,” she duets with a funky soul sample. She also knows when to let her voice shine on its own, like in the truly mesmerizing “I Been Livin.” Over a dusty and distorted piano, her ethereal vocals take the forefront for an aching reflection on moving forward: “But I thought I would’ve learned by now / The time do move but it don’t speed.”

In an interview with NME, Williams says she imagined the record to be like reading the diary pages from different characters she’s made up. As she acknowledges herself though, this feels less like fiction and more like a way for her to explore all the facets of her being. There’s the Liv.e who throatily sings of the indisputable sexuality of Texas girls in “SirLadyMakeemFall” (“I’ll pull out my saddle / And I’ll rock your world”) and the Liv.e so in love that she smiles with all her teeth during the tropical chimes of “You the One Fish in the Sea” (“I know just what I want (It’s you) / Ooh bae, I never been so sure in my life!”). The vignettes are compelling in their specificity, from the quiet yearning for an ex who played with her hair in “How It Made Me Feel” to the bold fantasies about making a potential lover breakfast in bed in “Bout My Big Man Batter.” 

Couldn’t Wait To Tell You embraces such fluidity: It’s experimental yet nostalgic, laid back yet intentional, psychedelic yet soothing. Through her shifting perspectives, Williams explores her own dualities — the in-between spaces and emotions marked by anticipation and indecision. She seems less concerned about any end goal more than the changes she undergoes on the way there, and she treats herself with care. “But you know a bitch is learning / I’m just trying, don’t judge me!” she sings in “Lessons From My Mistakes… but I Lost Your Number.” 

Image courtesy of In Real Life

Throughout the album, Williams discards typical song structures in favor of freeform discoveries. Thoughts tend to drift away rather than finding clear resolutions, and the record’s tracks pool into one another. “About Love at 21” and “She’s My Brand New Crush” might as well be one song, seamlessly blending together with a rippling beat. They work in tandem to contrast an intense relationship seemingly on its last legs and the shiny feelings of finding someone new. The latter hints at growth sparked from the prior: “I ain’t runnin in the middle of a three-way street,” Williams sings, accentuated by shimmering chimes.

Williams teases her audience’s expectations of a continuous ebb and flow. Over halfway through “Lessons From My Mistakes...but I Lost Your Number,” the song dissipates into silence. A long beat passes. “I know, I know, you thought the song was over,” she drawls with a wink as the track’s jangly elevator music instrumentation renews before a smoother beat takes hold. “But that’s incorrect because life keeps going on and energy never dies, does it? No, it doesn’t.” 

“LazyEaterBetsOnHerLikeness,” another album highlight, plays similar tricks. The song starts midway through a simple drum loop that thrums along as Williams works through wistful dreams of romance. Staking out where she won’t compromise, she sings: “You expected me to act all types of bubbly / I can’t play myself ‘cause I'm not over you / I’ma choose myself, I hope that you choose me too.” Even as Williams builds up the outro with starry-eyed vocalizations, the beat remains static until it all cuts off abruptly, jarring the trance. 

The coming-of-age narratives of Couldn’t Wait To Tell You are immersive and multidimensional. Even as she experiences growing pains, Williams has an undeniable sense of self, and her magnetic charisma beckons you to sit down and listen. 

“It’s never been a secret that I love myself,” she smiles during the imagined conversation taking place in “What’s the Real,” the album’s intro track. “Well ... do you really want to know? What it feel like? How I feel?” The answer is an easy yes.