Oskar is Jonny Dawe and Nick Powell, who formed in 1999. The collaboration between the former Collapsed Lung bassist and fine artist Jonny Dawe, and former Strangelove keyboard player and soundtrack composer Nick Powell, draws on sources such as Krautrock, systems composers Michael Nyman and Steve Reich, Sonic Youth and folk-psych. The new EP, ‘Domestic, from the electronic duo features four irresistible challenging dreamy pop songs.
Opening track ‘Domestic’ features high squawking guitars, with 21st century religious chanting, whilst underneath a steady blanket of post punk drones keep the woozy number bubbling along. The warm chanting, combined with the cold squawking guitar makes for a bit of a mad trip. The title ‘White Suits’ immediately conjures up images of asylums and hospitals. The eerie opening of slow electronics and quiet piano, tip-toes into a broken facade of stripped strings and slow Bjork style vocals: like treading hollow corridors, peering into closed rooms, and a different section of the track hauntingly reveals itself. The closing track of the EP, ‘Juegetes’ introduces us to fractured, attention grabbing piano laments. A car-boot sale of randomness, and stepping into the unknown. For some reason it seems to ooze a quintessential sentimental value, perhaps echoes into it’s simplistic childlike searching’s.
This EP is schizophrenic in the emotions it plays-up, from sentimental comfort to hollow coldness, it is quite a mood enhancing journey.
Record Label: Universal
Words By: Sarah Bates
