Tiny Ruins, originally conceived as the solo project of New Zealand singer-songwriter Hollie Fullbrook, are releasing their third album Olympic Girls on Friday 1st February 2019 via Milk! Records / Remote Control Records. After sharing the lead single of the same name, Tiny Ruins has now shared 'School of Design'. It was recorded live, with the full band of Cass Basil on bass, Alex Freer on drums and Tom Healy on electric guitar in their hometown of Auckland. 'School of Design' is an achingly haunting refrain, inspired by a moment of reflection on tour.

"The lyrics came from a real experience where I did find myself wandering around an empty design school in a foreign city while on tour. That's where the imagery of the fresh white paint on the walls and the 'archives' comes from, as that's what I saw there. I wrote the song maybe two years later. You draw from experiences to articulate other feelings, other thoughts...a cinematic image that you know well is used to give life to something else, another feeling altogether.

It's a song about systems, about the confining nature of systems, and wanting to find a new way. It was written quickly, and I loved the guitar part from the get go, but I resisted its lyrics for a while - I felt it was too similar to another song of mine - "Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens" which is also about an institution, and about escaping from regimented regime. But in the end, I became happy with it."

Olympic Girls was produced by bandmate Tom Healy in the same underground lair (Paquin Studios at The Lab in hometown Auckland) as their 2014 album, Brightly Painted One. Whereas Brightly Painted One was recorded in three short weeks, Olympic Girls recordings took place over a year. It is the culmination of a flourish of spontaneity and experimentation and stridently reaches beyond Fullbrook's formerly minimalist domain. Olympic Girls is Tiny Ruins' first release since their 2016 single 'Dream Wave', which was recorded and produced by David Lynch and chosen by Lorde for the Hunger Games soundtrack blueprint she curated.