THE PHANTOM SOUND

 Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook

WHO is The Phantom Sound?
“My name is Marisa Schlussel. I have always known I wanted to play music since I was a little kid. I played bass guitar first when I was 12, then picked up guitar not too long after that, but I played bass in most of the bands I was in, and did backing vocals.”

Marisa is currently completing her first solo self-titled album, produced by Ken Stringfellow (Posies, Big Star, R.E.M.) with Clem Burke, drummer of Blondie, playing on several of the tracks.

“I met Ken when I was living in Berlin in 2013 – she recalls – I always admired his career in The Posies and Big Star. I got the nerve to ask him if he would produce the band I was playing bass in in Berlin, I sent him a recording, he said yes. We had planned to do this for a couple of weeks getting everything sorted, then…I quit the band. It just wasn’t right, they had different goals than I had. So, I put my tail between my legs, while I was bawling my eyes out walking home, to tell Ken it wasn’t going to happen, but then a couple of conversations later, I found myself the next month in a Berlin studio with him recording songs for my solo project, The Phantom Sound.”

“I had asked friends and people I knew when I lived in L.A. to help out on the album here and there. I had Pierre De Reeder from Rilo Kiley play bass on a couple songs…then one night when we were recording Get to Me in Ken’s Paris studio, I had mentioned that I heard a “Blondie style” back beat happening on that song…Ken then said, “Why don’t we ask Clem?”. So, long story short, Clem listened to the tracks and said yes, he would do it, and he ended up playing drums on 6 tracks off the album.”

WHAT is she singing about?
“I write about personal things, personal experiences” Marisa tells us. “I find it really hard to write when it’s something I haven’t been through myself or know about. I can sympathise and empathise, but I haven’t tried that in my writing yet, at least for this album. I had a lot to say about my own experiences, so there wasn’t room for anything else.”

Her new single Get to Me “is about fear, and how sometimes what we see in reality isn’t really what is happening. We make our own realities something worse than they are, and it’s a cycle that is hard to get out of, and can be crippling.” Musically she is inspired by late 70’s punk, early 80’s new wave “I think that comes across in the single and the album as a whole.”

WHERE is she from?
“I am from Los Angeles, California, but have lived in New York City as well…eventually ended up in Berlin, Germany, and now London, England. I think all the places I have lived have shaped me musically, but I have a special place in my heart for NYC, as that is the place where music really started taking shape for me.”

“When I moved to Berlin, that is where I knew that there was nothing else for me. I had to be creative. I had to write music, I had to write words. I ended up writing around 30 songs during the year, and 12 ended up on the album. I think it was good that this recording process was slower than normal for most albums…it allowed me to contemplate more and gave me the time I needed to flesh out my emotions, and what I needed to get out and say.”

WHY ‘The Phantom Sound’?
“I thought of that name while living in Berlin, and it’s perfect for me. A phantom sound is kind of like a phantom limb. People that have lost a limb, sometimes feel as if the limb they lost is actually there…same with sound in a way. There are mysterious voices and other noises within music and sound that you think are there, but it’s a sound created by putting all these different sounds together. This happens to me a lot…maybe I am crazy 🙂 but…I think it’s cool…”

WHEN can I see her live?
“I am working on making live shows happen…stay tuned. I really want these live shows to be special. I have an idea for a stage show, something a few steps up then what you might normally expect from a club show, that involves getting the right people together to make happen. I think big, it sometimes doesn’t always work out the way I imagine, but why not try…dream big, I say…!!”

HOW can I get to know her better?
Listen & Watch: Website // Spotify // Soundcloud // Youtube
Like & Follow: Facebook // Twitter // Instagram

Watch The Phantom Sound’s video for debut single Get to Me

OSCAR

Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook

WHO is he?
Oscar is ‘melody-maker, mover n shaker’ (as stated in his Twitter bio) Oscar Scheller, a 24-year-old former Central St Martins art college student. The North London baritone is a classically trained songwriter who likes to make guitar pop in his bedroom.

I think having a classical knowledge gives you a respect and appreciation for composition and melody. It gives you an understanding of how music can work. It makes you think laterally and not within genre, but within composition. It allows you to be playful because you know which rules you’re breaking and which ones you’re respecting (x).

The enthusiastic record collector with a Renaissance mentality (that is, in his own words, “appreciating craft and creation in whatever format”(x)) signed to Wichita Recordings in January 2015.

WHAT is he singing about?
“How sad and scary life can be, and how beautiful it can be too!” he says (x).

Oscar, who started writing around the age of 13, experienced “a great deal of loss and sadness from a young age. I think that’s probably where the bittersweet nature of my writing comes from. Even if I try to write a happy song, it always come out melancholic in one way or another.”(x)

His latest single Daffodil Days was inspired by an autocorrect mistake. “It all started out on one of those dark winter evenings, when everything felt wrong. I was having a pretty bad day and as I was texting a friend, the word ‘difficult’ turned to ‘daffodil’ by a stroke of autocorrect genius. It really made me laugh and somehow made a lot of a sense. The song represents that day for me. The melancholy in knowing that it won’t work but that there is always hope and future, of the Daffodil Days ahead. Something which is easily forgotten.” (x)

WHERE is he from?
Oscar is from West Hampstead, an area in North-West London. The city has a big influence on his songwriting. “I think London is the greatest city. There is so much to make me inspired here. Just walking down the street you see twenty things that you could muse on, or that spark an interesting thought. This city has a certain magic that no other does. A rich history too.”(x)

However, when it comes to community “I have always felt like a bit of an outsider. I’m most definitely not part of any scene. I sometimes wish that wasn’t the case, but as I’m still living at home, I think it’s hard to plug into anything outside of that. There’s definitely that kind of DIY scene in parts of East and South London. I often feel as though I’m missing out, but then maybe that’s part of my creative process. Loneliness and a sense of loss.” (x)

WHY should I listen to him?
“It might just be because the hooks are criminally catchy, but it’s also down to the way that he writes and performs his songs that sets him apart from his peers.” (x) as well as his rich baritone voice which immediately grabs your attention.

Also his Twitter feed is quite an interesting read…

Sometimes I have the music taste of a teenage girl from the 00s

— Oscar (@oscar_scheller) January 25, 2015

WHEN can I see him live?
He’s heading out on his first UK headline tour in March/April 2015. All dates here.

HOW can I get to know him better?
Listen & Watch: Soundcloud // Youtube
Like & Follow: Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Vine

> Take a tour of London with Oscar
> Read his interview with BEAT
> Take a look at his Artworks (sculpture and collage)

Watch Oscar perform Daffodil Days for Sofar London