Olivia Dean Adds Her Own Page to the Book of Love

The second album from this gifted British singer-songwriter pushes her music into an elevated tier.

- By Larisha Paul

What more is there to say about love? It has been painstakingly dissected and enshrined for centuries in the written word, films, and songs that both shatter and mend hearts. Olivia Dean says it herself on “I’ve Seen It,” the closing track from her second studio album, The Art of Loving. The British singer-songwriter witnessed love shape-shift across those mediums, but also watched as it took the form of her parents' bar-setting romance, young couples finding each other and growing apart, and older ones losing memories to time. “It makes me cry to think that I am able to give it back the way it gives to me,” Dean sings, while birds chirp in the distance. “The more you look, the more you find. It’s all around you, all the time.”

And yet, despite its pervasiveness, no one has quite nailed down the science behind falling in and out of love, whether romantically, platonically, or internally. At 26, Dean doesn't purport to have mastered the art of loving. In fact, she would be the first to admit that most of her findings have been inconclusive or flat-out wrong. But she is having a damn good time trying.