Oscar Key Sung

Back in December, we posted Melbourne avant-R&B auteur Oscar Key Sung's skipping "All I Could Do", and on March 3 Two Bright Lakes will release his debut EP, Holograms. While it's not confirmed at press time whether the title track was made by holograms (just kidding!), the crooner's lilting vocal laid atop the tune's subtly warped textures sounds positively human regardless. - Pitchfork

Oscar Key Sung is a major label anomaly. The experimental R&B singer and producer, who originally courted fame as part of Melbourne duo Oscar + Martin, has just released his second EP, Altruism, for Warner.

It’s an outward-looking mix of creative production and inventive songwriting, highlighted by second track Inside Job, a weird 90-second instrumental.

“It’s this funny thing where you’ve got to straddle this line, trying to bend your surroundings and also bend yourself,” says Key Sung, who was known as Oscar Vicente Slorach-Thorn in his previous band.

“I’m definitely not what Warner is used to handling and my personality is not used to being handled in the way they would intuitively work with me. So there’s this push and pull and a bit of a struggle. You have to adapt, while still maintaining a sense of what you want.”

Key Sung describes promotional material, such as photos and media releases, as a necessary evil. He likely thinks the same about this interview, though he is a gentleman throughout.

“If I had my way I wouldn’t have any press releases or press photos, there’s a lot of things I wouldn’t do,” he says. “I have loner tendencies and like to isolate myself as much as possible but it’s important to me to share my music and get feedback so I make compromises.”

In a world of post-Drake and James Blake impersonators, Key Sung’s unique vision is perhaps more favourably comparable with those artists’ early outputs, rather than their commercial breakthroughs.

His view of his place on a major label extends to how he approaches his writing, production and singing.

“A lot of my songs, if I didn’t get them mixed properly and I didn’t cut them down in structure and simplify them, they could be considered a more experimental work,” Key Sung says.

“I push myself to tick boxes of conceptual ideas, as well as pop simpleness and club bass, try and tick a lot of boxes simultaneously. I guess the relationship with Warner is similar.”

Altruism EP is out now.Oscar Key Sung plays Flyrite, Northbridge on June 19. Tickets from Moshtix.

The West Australian - The West Australian