One of the albums that we are looking forward to most in 2014 is the sophomore release from Bristol’s finest purveyor of elaborate and distinctive electronica, Oliver Wilde. The Howling Owl Records artist has a real knack for creating beautifully expansive pieces of sensual art, incorporating instrumentation organically and exorcising a warm soul from within electronically-generated sounds.
Following the announcement of the album ‘Red Tide Opal In The Loose End Womb‘ (Set for release in May) Wilde has so far served us the orchestrally-layered beauty of ‘On This Morning‘, a sonic vaccine that soundtracks a mid-state of consciousness you don’t wish to leave and ‘Stomach Full of Cats‘, a psychedelic turn that showcased Wilde’s ability to form unconventional sounds into a well-crafted pop-song . Now he has presented another fresh taste of the upcoming record, three minutes of sporadically agitated gaze-pop in the shape of ‘Play & Be Saved‘.
More driven and commanding than ‘On This Morning‘, the track bursts into colour from its commencement, wrestling MBV-esque shoegaze-attacks over coursing drum rolls. Wilde’s alleviating coos, awash in reverb and murmuring, are the soothing contrast to the stabs of anxiety surging through the heart of the track. It builds confidently, a steady sense of solitude covered underneath the unrelenting waves of Ride-infused feedback and glowing melody that convulse and bleed together, closing as one ethereal sounding piece.
If you like experimentally-striking music that delves to find deviating pastures within music and verse, then Oliver Wilde’s new record and his first, 2013’s ‘A Brief Introduction to Unnatural Light Years‘, could well turn out to be your records of the year. ‘Play & Be Saved‘ is a cacophony of sounds and emotions, something that Wilde manages to mould and deliver in a pleasing form.