Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Oscar Lang – Connan Mockasin, Caramel (2013)
My Dearest Caramel,
I’m trying to place myself at the first time I heard you, but I cannot remember where I first met your gaze. All I can remember is that feeling you gave me; Warmth. Comfort. Lust.
It has been many years now since I stumbled across the music video of ‘I’m The Man That Will Find You’, enticed by the preview of a blonde-haired man undressing me with his eyes from a hot tub. I was just starting to get into ‘Indie’ music and watching this metrosexual high pitched screeching man stare down the camera at me, little did I know that you were the album that opened my eyes to how weird but wonderful indie music could be.
You are my onomatopoeia, every note of you drips with caramel. Swirling me round and bathing me in thick sweet golden light. Guitars coated in chorus and reverb lose me in a cacophony of ethereal sound, taking me into your world. The cheeky laughs and moans only pull me deeper into the world you created. Recorded in a hotel room onto a cassette recorder solely by Connan Mockasin, you inspired me to record everything myself and opened my eyes to analog gear. I watched every vid I could find on how the record was made and went out and bought a cassette recorder just because of you. The first single I ever released was recorded on cassette and continued to fuel my love for analog gear.
Thank you for allowing me to be weird, you opened yourself up to creativity and embraced the world of music for art’s sake. Tracks like ‘Why Are You Crying’ showed me that music doesn’t have to be so conventional and having someone sniffling and crying over the whole song elevates the track rather than distracting me from it. You inspired me to add low-pitched talking and intros to some of my music and to build a universe around it.
Thank you Caramel, I will always love you.
Love,
Oscar
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Oscar Lang’s new album ‘Chew The Scenery’ is out this Friday August 13th. Pre-order or pre-save here.
