On his latest release under the Scrimshaw Porn moniker, Nick Helgesen crafts something both devastatingly intimate and sonically expansive. “Olivia” is a swirling meditation on love, queerness, and the quiet ache of being left behind — told with startling honesty and wrapped in a lush, dream-pop haze.
What begins as a confessional spiral slowly unfurls into a track that feels at once timeless and completely modern. Helgesen’s voice — tender, weathered, and slightly frayed — floats over delicate synth textures, rippling percussion, and ghostly strings. There’s a distinct early-2000s pop-punk cadence to his delivery, but it’s recontextualised here within a palette more akin to the dreamlike shimmer of Mac DeMarco or the brooding ambience of Depeche Mode. This tonal blend doesn’t feel forced; rather, it expands the emotional register of the song, reinforcing the sense of displacement and longing.
The backstory behind “Olivia” is as compelling as the track itself. Helgesen wrote it during a neuro music session — a creative experiment that led him to the ocean drum, an instrument that became a textural anchor throughout. The production is a collaborative effort, too: percussionist Kyle Sparks adds rhythmic subtlety and electric guitar lines, while violinist Jessica Murphy contributes airy, cinematic strings recorded remotely from Florida. The whole thing is tied together by longtime co-producer Matt Ricci, who brings a warmth and cohesion that makes the song feel like a late-night fever dream.
Lyrically, “Olivia” is fearless. Helgesen doesn’t obscure his vulnerability — he lets it lead. The result is a song that captures the surreal, painful moment of realising your partner is falling in love with someone else — someone you’ll never be. The line between jealousy and acceptance blurs, and from that confusion, beauty emerges.
Scrimshaw Porn has always occupied the fringes — of genre, of identity, of pop music’s more conventional frameworks — but “Olivia” feels like a crystallisation of everything that makes the project compelling. It’s emotionally unguarded, richly produced, and quietly profound. A song to cry to, drift to, and return to long after the ache has dulled.
