Oliver Marson press assets

Having teamed up with Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink, Sky Ferreira) and Joshua Rumble (Black Country, New Road) to achieve this sound on his upcoming album and singles. Oliver Marson blends music from the 60s, 70s and 80s to create a catchy baroque pop sound. This is ludicrous music for ludicrous times and satire for life in late capitalism. Inspired heavily by the lyrical work of Alex Cameron in his parody of Toxic Masculinity and also the work of Jonathan Bree, Kirin J Callinan and John Maus. The tracks themselves feature Christina Lopez on drums, Charles Cave on bass (White Lies) and with some vocals from For Breakfast lead vocalist, Maya Harrisson.

Through promoter SC&P (Tempers, The KVB, Boy Harsher and Choir Boy), he has played shows with M!R!M, White Devil Disco (ex Fat White Family’s bassist Joseph Panucci), Ghum, Minimal Schlager and Silent Star in London, Paris, Manchester and Nottingham. Off the back of that, Marson is ready to release the music he has been making during the pandemic. Marson’s music is vibrant, exuberant, and unpredictable. Marson’s music has been featured on Brooklyn Vegan, postpunk.com and Obscure sound and Its all Indie. Marson is to release a new song ‘Richest Man in the World’ in collaboration with the directors of Walt Disco’s ‘Weightless’.

The album’s title ‘Why did I choose this?’ is a reference to the chorus of the opening track ‘Blue Dreams’, which is a fantasy about Marson burning down the building of his mundane office job. This sets the tone for an album, which is about mistakes and bad life choices. It’s about reaching a point in your life where you ask yourself ‘how did I get here?’ A dull career, a dodgy tattoo or a horrible hair transplant. The album tries to offer a release and an escape from life in mundanity.

What we get after the track’s opener is a set of day dreams written whilst being bored in office jobs and stuck at home during the pandemic. Sometimes satiric and sometimes very sincere, Marson tries to find a release from a confusing world that resembles something more akin to a Thomas Pynchon novel, which similarly involves characters that try to find meaning in a world which makes no sense. Is this some grandiose artistic statement or just a descent into madness?

Tracks that follow Blue dreams include Andalusian Girl, which satirises toxic masculinity in the context of a decadent lad’s holiday gone wrong. You get songs that deal with the exploitative nature of this system. How human beings are treated as expendable and exploited by narcissists in songs like Richest man in the World. The album ends with Flowers of Evil, a song very much about going through the motions in life in late capitalism and asks the question can we really change? Conversely, mistakes are what make us human and drive progress, so the album can also be seen as a celebration of the imperfections of human nature. In short, life is complicated, challenging and often confusing but there is poetry in that.

The influences of the album really stem from artists like Frank Zappa and Alex Cameron, who tend to deal with quite dark and serious topics in a playful way. To create the sound, Marson emailed Jorge Elbrecht (Japanese Breakfast, Sky Ferrera) to mix his album during the pandemic. Thankfully, Jorge actually replied and was able to give Marson an unsigned rate. The album was written mostly from home and with the help of producer Joshua Rumble (Black Country New Road). The tracks themselves feature friends Christina Lopez on drums (Lava la rue, Empathy Test), Charles Cave on bass (White Lies) and with some vocals from For Breakfast lead vocalist, Maya Harrisson.

Marson has been writing music on his own since 2019, releasing tracks like Manipulator, which was released earlier this year and featured on Brooklyn Vegan. Having no real connection to the music industry before, Marson is something of an outsider. The tracks on the album are varied and often veer off into different styles and sections keeping in theme with the confusing themes of the album. This is a DIY, self released album written on Marson’s terms and a mission statement for things to come.