OCEAÁN

This week’s tip is an admirably avant-garde slice of glitch-lounge electronica from Oceaán, aka Manchester-based producer Oliver Cean. At first listen sounding like someone doing speed-washing up in the café of a video arcade, the track’s multifarious delights reveal themselves on further listens like the dissection of a particularly musical onion.

‘Veritas’ makes good use of panned sound effects, notably a very familiar 8-bit retro gaming noise, whose source I can’t quite put my finger on. Zaxxon? Q-Bert? Commander Keen? Answers on a postcard, please. In between glitches, Cean’s smooth vocal yearns mournfully for that special someone responsible for such sentiment as “You’ve always made me feel alone / now you’ve got me waiting by the phone”. Aww. But if the result of such hanging around indoors is music like this, let’s hope she keeps him on tenterhooks a bit longer.

‘Veritas’ is the second track on Oceaán’s second EP, Grip, released on Chess Club Records, released next week. The mood is resolutely downtempo throughout, with trademark almost-whispered vocals and found-sound percussion – perhaps the soundtrack to a particularly chilled-out nightclub dancefloor, or a midnight drive through a concrete cityscape. And that’s the Truth.

Words by Martin

Tip by Lewis Lister