"Open Up"- Oscar

Seeing the cover for "Open Up", London art student Oscar Scheller's self-released effort under the mononym Oscar, you can probably make a few predictions about the track. "Warm" is an adjective that immediately came to my mind. The sort of warmth you feel when you're wrapped up in layers of blankets and a glint of sunlight comes beaming in. Rather than shield your eyes from the light you lazily stare at it, as though looking long enough will solve some cosmic mystery.

Despite its quivering guitar lines and in-the-pocket drum beat, "Open Up" has that same shiftless contemplation. Oscar's voice possesses a beautifully worn quality. When he croons "I don't want to tell the truth, I don't want to lose you," in the opening couplet you get the sense a weary collapse is around the corner. He's a hopeless romantic in a painfully literal sense of the phrase, so downtrodden his pleas lack any kind of pathos. He'll make a bid before wondering "what's the use?" Even in the song's chorus, where a wonky synthesizer shows up and the drumming becomes more urgent, Scheller seems nonplussed. The phrase "you wait" is repeated by Scheller though it's more self-contained than second-person. And then another word enters the scene, one anyone who has spent enough time staring at the four walls in their bedroom knows all too well: "stuck."

You can hear "Open Up" now on Stereogum where it had its premiere this morning. Oscar's debut EP will be out in the Summer via Smalltown Supersound's newly minted Brown Rice imprint.