Producer, engineer, or multi-instrumental musician, Lucas Oswald has his fingers in many pies. After years performing as a touring musician with Shearwater and The Appleseed Cast, he embarked on a long and cathartic songwriting and recording process that resulted in the songs that now make up the deeply personal and rewarding Whet. Growing up on a farm outside of Missouri, his initial interactions with music were driven by both boredom and a sense of exploration and, with instruments surrounding him growing up, it allowed him to take a multitude of sonic explorations during his formative years, which come across perfectly in this LP.

The writing and recording process took around 18 months, with Oswald moving three times in the process while actively touring with Shearwater. His nomadic lifestyle, along with financial and mental struggles, meant the recording served as the only constant in his life. Acting as a dual coping mechanism/creative release full of lyricisms relating to anxiety, abandonment, and instability.

Whet may not be the album to get a party going, but it’s certainly one for those days when the weight of the world requires some musical therapy. When writing, Oswald would flesh out the music first, with the lyrics for each song falling into place afterwards, sometimes months later after mulling over them until he got them right. “I always liked the phrase ‘whet your appetite,’” he said. “So much of being an artist with compulsion problems is this need to constantly whet a certain appetite. I love the definition of whet – ‘a thing that stimulates appetite or desire.’ When you’re depressed, there’s such a lack of that. So I liked the idea of the album being my own cathartic creation that would stimulate my own desire again.”

Each of the eight songs are close to Oswald’s heart and this aspect is audible in tracks like ‘Passenger’ which was influenced by playing second fiddle to other artists’ visions, whilst in ‘A Long, Long Year’ he sings about being exhausted, trapped, and broke. Opener ‘I Believe In Trying’, meanwhile, offers deeply personal, profoundly cathartic songwriting, which perfectly exemplifies his evolution into a chief artist. ‘Dark On Us’ could even be considered a Britpop composition in which Oswald looks into the struggle of everyday life and the darker side of reality. Whilst recent single ‘Starving’ sees him fighting personal demons and fear of abandonment – initially starting out as an uplifting piano ballad, the final version is a completely different beast.

His explorations have created a variety of sharp, punchy, abrasive sounds, and washy/reverb textures that make Whet a record that encapsulates a seminal time in his own life and invites listeners to join him in the midst of his on-going journey.

Paul Hill

Website: lucasoswald.com
Facebook: facebook.com/lucasoswaldmusic
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