Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Angela Wolff, from Season 1 of The Voice, recently released her debut solo EP.

And, occasionally, I stumble across a real gem.

That was the case earlier this month when I learned that Angela Wolff had released an EP called “Surrender and Release.”

Angela was 25 when she appeared on Season 1 of The Voice back in the spring of 2011.

She actually needed two auditions to land a spot on Team Adam; she was knocked out of the competition in the battle round when she was pitted against eventual winner Javier Colon.

Well, late last month, she released her debut EP, a five-track effort filled with great songs and brilliant vocals.

In a YouTube video in which she talks about the EP, Angela says she grew up in a small town in Georgia, started singing when she was young and would have her parents drag her all over the place so she could perform.

At one point, she was lead singer for an alternative pop band called Dirty Pollyanna that released an EP and a full-length album.

“I ended up going through so many crazy things, like record deals and this and that that fell through and so much rejection,” Angela says in the video. “But it does make you stronger and you keep going and keep moving because it’s your passion.

“I realized, after all this time I’d been spending in the music industry and all this effort I was putting out there, I didn’t actually write my own songs and sing my own songs from a completely pure place of just me, on piano, just doing it.

“So I just sat down and started writing, writing, writing. So many songs.”

The result is the new EP. I’ve embedded two of my favorite tracks — “Honeybee” and “Ricochet” — below.

As for the EP’s title, Angela explains it this way.

The songs are a part of me, but they’re no longer mine. Now they’re for everyone else. Music is meant for sharing. It’s a way for us to understand each other and relate to one another.

You can keep up with Angela’s musical endeavors on her Facebook page. On Twitter, she is @angelawolffsays.