Overlords of the Soundcloud – Owsey

Welcome to part 1 of what will perhaps be 1, of my (non)series of Overlords of Soundcloud. Alright, that sounds shite, but I have had fuck all sleep and am trying my best to avoid other more pressing issues in my day to day, so Overlords it is. Though a disgustingly pomp filled title, nothing could be further from the truth for the artistes that I have in mind for this searing insight into the wonderful world of Soundcloud.

As freemusic has been dominating my ears of late, I feel that it is time I doffed my virtual cap to those that have kept me entertained and spread my thanks to whomever shall listen. First on this wagon of funty, cometh the might of Owsey. Again I say might, but really this is conceptual might, for in the traditional sense of the word, there is none apparent in their music. Here’s a wee sample to listen while I witter.

My first introduction to the Oswey creature was on a dark night as I let my ears wander through some dubstep type mix business. There was an intriguing remix of Birdy’s cover of Skinny Love, a gentle and lovely mix where Owsey takes the spacious dreaminess of the cover and seems to somehow pump it full of much more space. There is of course some perfectly understated defibrilating bass to add to this gentle pool of sound, which hooked me right in. This led me to jump onto Soundcloud and check out what else there may be on offer from this Owsey character. The answer was simply, fucking hundreds.

From here I was whapped into a sepia world of mixes and original tracks, a staggering amount of free music with comments lavished upon them so thickly that there is barely room to post a wee ‘well done’ and people piggy backing each others comments just to get a look in. It was like beatle-mania on a small, electronic and generally quite polite, scale. The rate at which Owsey posts new material is amazingly rapid. You are looking at a couple of tracks a week generally and from when I started tuning in, the quality of the tracks is improving upload by upload as if they are learning a small tweak or aspect of the software that just makes the next track that little bit more lovely.

Ah, the ramble, not yet a mention of the music. What kind of stuff is it? Well, I am afraid I am going to ramble this too. What Owsey is putting out goes from the heartfelt breeze of You Gave Me a Letter in a Field of Stars to house so subterranean that the even the mole people cant quite fathom it like Give me Truth. There is a backbone of dubstep in there, but by no means every track and by no means anything like straightforward dubstep. I have about 15 tracks on my mp3 player thusfar and listening to them all is like entering a beautiful trance, only realising what you have been listening to when it comes to an end and you snap back to reality. Thus, the ultimate in commuting music. A joyful exercise in cinematic haze, one to shut down the thinky bit of the brain and access the feely bit for a while.

I am still pretty unclear what Owsey does, how the music is made, where the root lies? Is he a pianist, electronica meister, sample wizard? Well essentially none of that matters so much and to me he seems more like some musical Siren, sitting on a tree stump beckoning me into the foggy land beyond with his enchanting wiggly fingers. And I am in. Ensnared.

With all this output though, I was happy to see the simple phrase on Facebook ‘Owsey album coming soon’ as I look forward to seeing how it will be structured, where it will take me, and if my fingers are still working by that point I will doubtlessly let you know.