Victoria and Vancouver Island have a lot of musical talent, and Victoria Buzz wants to highlight some of the best and brightest local artists and bands.
Every Monday, there will be a fresh ‘New Music Monday’ article to help people find and support local artists and bands that are up-and-coming, well established or hidden gems!
For this endeavour, Victoria Buzz has partnered with our good friends at CFUV 101.9 FM, UVic’s campus radio station, to find and select the musicians and bands for this regular column.
This week, Oily James is the New Music Monday highlight!
Oily James is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Ollie Sandberg, most well-known in Victoria for his work in the group Neighbourly.
His most recent EP release, Head Phone Music, came about as he expanded on his knowledge and skills as a producer, and through the process of creating a new studio space which he shared with another artist.
“That inspired the title of the EP, Head Phone Music, because I actually resorted to a lot of making the tracks through my headphones,” Oily James told Victoria Buzz.
“I tentatively called it Head Phone Music, and then just kept calling it that. The first track is called ‘Incoming Call’ with that, I was also playing with the idea of your head calling, like phoning, music.”
Head Phone Music features seven songs, which are dynamic in range, but all are grounded in a sound of electronic, lo-fi funk.
Oily James creates his music through using a myriad of instruments, techniques and production tricks, but many of his songs begin with a looper pedal.
“I’ve done a whole variety of styles in my solo stuff, whether I’m playing a song on guitar and singing it, I also do some live looping—which includes using a drum sequencer, keyboard and I run everything through a loop pedal,” he explained.
“I kind of build tracks live. It’s interesting, that’s part of the technique of Oily.”
He says he often begins with the loop and will jam over top of that, then re-record all the parts from the loop itself.
Oily James says that around the time he was recording Head Phone Music, he was heavily influenced by, not only his bandmates and co-collaborators in Neighbourly, but also their producer, Latham Reader, who also mastered this EP.
Another project that continuously influences Oily James is Connan Mockasin.
“He is just in that same vein, like his music is very weird and he also has a comedy element to it,” said Oily James.
“I kind of just adopted that style. I’ve always wanted to make music like him and Oily James definitely fits in that vein of weird, with a bit of comedy thrown in.”
Oily James chose to highlight the song “Upside Down” for this New Music Monday feature.
“I’m super proud of that track, to be honest, because it’s so simple, and I just really liked the melodies I wrote for it,” he said.
Oily James says he recorded this song over the change of seasons as summer faded to autumn.
“It’s about the world being crazy, being upside down, the values of the world just being completely upside down,” Oily James explained.
He was also reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer during the time he was writing “Upside Down.”
“In the second verse I say, ‘harvest sisters, come paint a picture on a canvas in my mind,’ and I literally took that from Braiding Sweetgrass because there is that harvest sisters [chapter] about corn, pumpkin and peas.”
“It’s about how they help each other grow and create diversity, and that inspired that notion of things being upside down, like societal priorities…we should probably learn from the harvest sisters,” he continued.
Production-wise, the song began simply with a loop, then Oily James recorded all the parts heard on the track over that, ending with the drums to give the song a more live feel.
Preview “Upside Down” and the rest of Head Phone Music below.
To listen to Head Phone Music in its entirety, it is available on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp.
The next Oily James show in Victoria will be at a Christmas market in Market Square on December 13th, where he will be performing a DJ set.
Additionally, Neighbourly has a show coming up on December 5th, for CFUV’s 40th anniversary at Upstairs in Bastion Square.
There, they will be playing alongside Freak Heat Waves, Hot Goss and VASAVAGALS.
To find out about more Oily James shows and releases, follow him on Instagram.
His next release is a more ambient project that he has been working on for some time now.
Related:
- New Music Monday: Best Man explores grief through ‘gut-wrenching harmonies’ on debut EP
- New Music Monday: Poncho brings freestyle Afrobeats sound to Victoria from Ghana
- New Music Monday: Carmine release first single and music video for upcoming EP
CFUV is a non-profit campus and community radio station that plays a ton of local music of all kinds across Vancouver Island. If you like to support local music they are an amazing resource with a plethora of new local tunes in their arsenal.
“CFUV is a Victoria staple,” Oily James said. “They’re helping to spearhead the live music scene in Victoria. Everyone there are legends.”
Tune into CFUV 101.9 FM on air or online!
Let us know what you think of Oily James in the comments below.
