Bay Area producer Lindsay Olsen went from working as a climate scientist to pursuing music full time with her warped and magical project Salami Rose Joe Louis. After issuing two albums more independently, she signed on with Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label for the release of 2019's Zdenka 2080, a collection of short bursts of experimental pop, abstract beats, and bedroom R&B songs connected by a dystopian sci-fi narrative. Lindsay Olsen was raised in San Diego and played in punk bands growing up. She moved to Crockett, California, a small city north of the Bay Area, after college and began working as a scientist at the same time that she was delving deeper into composition. She began releasing music as Salami Rose Joe Louis, taking the project name from a mash-up of two childhood nicknames for her insular, sketch-like songs heavy on synthesizers and cosmic imagery. She released her first album, Son of a Sauce!, in 2016 and followed the next year with Zlaty Sauce Nephew, both sprawling collections of brief, wobbly pop experiments and drifting beats. Shortly after the release of Zlaty Sauce Nephew, Olsen was involved in a car accident in which she sustained minor injuries that left her unable to work for several weeks. During this time, one of her songs was also used in a commercial, and the confluence of events led her to make a decision to pursue music full time. While working towards her next album, she toured with Toro y Moi and signed to the Brainfeeder label. The label proved a perfect home for Salami Rose Joe Louis' specific brand of extraterrestrial pop, and they released her third album, Zdenka 2080, in August 2019. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi
