Released on June 22nd 2009- Incarnation Records

‘The cocktail of Some Song’s unflinching spoken word, the heart-wrenching Dadaist tone poem woven through Richenbach Falls and undulating gem Hi-Beam Blue lend LP: 2 an air of haunted madness… **** ’ (The Irish Times)

'A vivid, varied collection of quite beautiful melancholia throwing in freak folk, surreal cabaret and post rock tones.’ (The List)

‘LP:2 is no ordinary album. It creates pictures of sadness, life and death which are so graphic that in the still of silence that follows the music’s completion, one just remains motionless in thought. Certainly in my experience, this seldom happens. LP:2 is a genuinely moving and unique musical experience. ****-1/2' (Shakenstir)

'Few artists can produce music of such variety and complex layering without creating a lightweight 'dilettante’ effort and similarly there are very few albums that have you hanging on, waiting for the next twist or veering direction. Oskar are a depiction of the way forward for modern, intelligent music; they reward effort and they have created something that, in parts, is really wonderful. ****' (Music News)

‘Dadaist poetry, sonorous cellos, echoing electronica, post rock, pop and Krautrock … an album which is never less than fascinating; and often moving. ****' (Stool Pigeon)

‘Such is the standard that they set once again on LP:2 that I really couldn’t choose between either of their releases if asked to pick a favourite or stronger album. **** ’ (Beat Surrender)

‘The ear is continually indulged, and occasionally tested - but frequently rewarded. **** ’ (Music OMH)

‘It may have been five years since ex-Strangelove member Nick Powell and Collapsed Lung mainstay Jonny Dawe teamed up for their OSKAR debut album ‘Air Conditioning’ but this follow-up is brilliant enough that you may forgive them… Fabulous.' (Bearded Magazine)

A typical song finds the cool, glacial canvas of Powell's quiescent piano layered in textures running the whole gamut of spine-tinging; - half heard mutters, bows of feedback, quiet, nagging distortion; second album LP2 adds a bit more breadth to their minor key core sound…the band's music hovers in that magic spot where melancholia blooms into sensual uplift.’ (Drowned In Sound)

‘The iTunes player says ‘Unclassifiable’ and it’s absolutely right. Because some tracks are gorgeous and lush, while others sound like the soundtrack to a nightmare, or possibly a nervous breakdown.’ (17 Seconds)

The Beat Surrender track by track guide to ‘LP:2’ by Nick and Jonny

Big City Redneck Interview with Jonny

The Quietus interview with Jonny and Nick

A while back, Nick Powell of OSKAR was in Spain working on a production of the notorious “play within a play” ‘Marat Sade’. Because the plot concerns the Marquis de Sade trying to stage a drama within an insane asylum, Nick decided to hold some workshops with patients of the Dr Izquerdo Clinic. This psychiatric institution in Madrid is home to many people forgotten by society, often chronic schizophrenics who are heavily medicated. Nick recalls meeting the inmates who have very little in the way of communication with each other or anyone else: “One day, when I was recording the workshop, a group of previously uncommunicative patients in their 60s and 70s started singing songs from their childhoods, and, maybe even more amazingly, applauding each other when they had sung. According to the staff this was absolutely unprecedented. It seemed like a good idea to make an OSKAR track around the recording of that moment.”

This story illuminates OSKAR, a band based around ex-Strangelove member Nick and former Death By Milkfloat/Collapsed Lung mainstay, Jonny Dawe. The song in question, ‘Sanitorio’ is like the haunted tones of an organic Boards of Canada being taken on a bucolic stroll by the Penguin Café Orchestra, joined by voices from another time and place. Put simply it finds beauty where most would find horror, sadness or angst. This is helped in no uncertain terms by the “notional third member”, cellist and occasional vocalist Sarah Wilson (whose previous collaborations include Belle and Sebastian and Tindersticks).

Their second album adds more weight, more vivid colour, more beauty to the velvety melancholia of their 2004 debut ‘Air Conditioning’. As Jonny puts it: “The debut worked more as an undulating drift; it carried a melancholy from start to finish. The shape of ‘LP:2’ has a variety of contrasts. It is still a journey in form but it has more hills and valleys, different terrain and a stranger climate – a bit like New Zealand.”

Their interest in unusual beauty is reflected in the magnetism of the track ‘Richenbach Falls’ which puts a ‘nonsense’ Dadaist phonetic poem by Hugo Ball to the kind of minimalist refrain that calls to mind Steve Reich or Michael Nyman.

Elsewhere they have taken their experiences from sound tracking films, art exhibitions, catwalks, sound installations and transposed it to a unique musical at the confluence of the pop and the avant. Theres is a world that takes in freak folk and baroque strings (‘Printer Tzara’), cabaret performance, spoken word and art rock (‘Some Song’) and brittle yet warm-hearted pop, dub-infused electronica and epic post rock (‘Hi Beam Blue’). Speaking about the austere beauty of ‘Hi Beam Blue’ Nick Concludes: “I love the twists the music takes on its way. We wrote the lyrics together. They are just a set of images that are about being really alive, but they are also about death at the same time. Which is I guess how you'd feel looking through the windscreen just before the car hits the brick wall.”

Welcome then to the world of OSKAR.

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