Occasionally, we receive requests direct from artists to review their music. More often than not they are unsigned acts looking for a small leg-up on a modest publicity budget. We always try to help but usually find that the music is not that great. When Nick Powell made contact recently we duly obliged hoping for the best but expecting nothing special. HOW WRONG WE WERE! Oskar is a two-musician outfit comprising of Nick Powell (former Strangelove keyboard player and soundtrack composer), and Jonny Dawe (former Collapsed Lung bassist). Oskar was formed back in 1999 to create an original soundtrack for performance art group The Max Factory’s Target, who performed the work throughout the UK and Europe. Other work followed until this latest superb offering. Other Oskar collaborators include string players Sarah Wilson (Belle and Sebastian) and Lucy Wilkins (Massive Attack). The album vocals are provided by Astrid Williamson and Gabriel Quigley. In live performance the band includes Ruth Gottlieb (Calexico, Sparklehorse). AIR CONDITIONING is an eight-track mini-album due for release in November 2004, and it’s a beauty…

The album’s first track, P.S.I., is superb. A languid and dark string backdrop interspersed with flashing slices of guitar and drum rock, it serves as a melodic and haunting instrumental prelude. Bang That Drum is next and with it the first chant-like female vocal overlaying another mix of classical string and more subtle guitar rock. It’s highly original, mesmerising and quite unlike anything I’ve heard before. The next instrumental track Chi Chi; Cha Cha & Cuy is another dark, haunting and glacially paced piece lightened by wispy spells of Celtic violin. It’s beautiful and prepares the way for a more optimistic, beat-driven song called Peripherique that, complete with hand claps, reminds me of something by experimental rockers Gastre Del Sol. On the utterly beautiful Cloudy Day/Sunny Day a distant sampled vocal refrain is heard behind the most expressive and mournful cello that winds its way around the strongest of melodies.

Penultimate track, Strike This, features a sweet and quiet Astrid Williamson vocal that grows in strength along with guitars that rev higher and higher as the song progresses. The song’s closes sharply and violently like a door slamming shut, and it’s another distinctive track underpinned by yet another strong melody. The album concludes with title track Air Conditioning that travels slowly along helped by electronic meanderings, deliberate piano notes, and eventually warped Hammond. There are not too many albums that one automatically puts on repeat play, again and again. But this is one of them. There’s a spirituality and intensity about the music that is rare and wholly beguiling. Think of a soundtrack, dominated by instruments, that accompanies a film about the mysteries of a tantalizingly beautiful landscape and creatures usually unseen by the human eye. These are the sort of images created by an album that is destined to be cemented to my CD tray for many months to come.

5/5