Oscar Lang has announced a new EP, Hand Over Your Head, with the debut of a new single and video titled “Apple Juice“.
“Apple Juice” continues Oscar’s shift from lo-fi, anti-folk bedroom pop towards a more warped and shimmering slacker-rock sound, fueled by wobbly synths and jangly guitars. Almost mirroring Lang’s eccentric but charismatic personality, his music practically contradicts itself, balancing experimental mischief with a delicate and deliberately focused on the euphoric aspects of normal, everyday life. Lang isn’t writing about wanderlust. He’s creating three and half minute short stories that bend old ideas into new shapes through the lens of breezy, psychedelic rock.
The 20 year old Londoner, referred to as “Brian Wilson for Gen-Z” for his retro approach to songwriting, immediately drew praise from BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Annie Mac, and Huw Stephens as well as The FADER who premiered his lead single “Hey” (ft. Alfie Templeman), and also included the track in their “18 best rock songs right now” column. The Line Of Best Fit made “Hey” their Song of the Day, while NME and others praised the EP’s five inventive and thrilling new tracks. Oscar’s self-released 2018 records Teenage Hurt and Silk were later pressed on limited yellow 12″ vinyl and re-released by Dirty Hit. The early records set the tone for his solo work — spanning lilting psych-hooks to dreamy washes of guitar to punchy millennial lyricism — and drew in hundreds of thousands of listeners in the process. In addition to Overthunk and bops etc., Lang partnered with Dirty Hit to write and produce beabadoobee’s 2018 release Patched Up and “Coffee,” which was recently featured in Powfu’s viral hit “death bed (coffee for your head),” which has accumulated nearly 515 million streams on Spotify alone.