Oliver Wilde explodes into life with ‘Blit Scratch’

For anyone with a remote interest in experimental pop steeped in oddities, Oliver Wilde’s return is an exciting moment. The Bristol musician’s 2014 album ‘Red Tide Opal in the Loose End Womb’ was an early marker, and it left a dozen strange routes to subsequently pursue.

After a two-year silence, Wilde came back earlier this month with ‘Bifida’, a sedated spinning wheel of weird treats. Next in line is ‘Blit Scratch’.

As is tradition, Wilde wraps his vocals in a cotton-coated fog. Softly-sung, they’re a relatively harmless ingredient in a crazed mix of extremes. Looped instrumentation, simple to begin with, suddenly grows teeth, gnashing at normality with vicious, frenzied stabs. It’s like Wilde is stamping on a broken piece of machinery, forcing it to get back in gear. That once innocent voice also explodes, distorting into creepy snarls and growls. ‘Blit Scratch’ starts off as a fairly standard dose of alt-pop, but it doesn’t take long to manifest into a beast. Or, in Wilde’s words, it’s “the sound the cardiac monitors play as I make best friends with ICD, the horse kick altruist.” Pick your poison.

It’s up there with Wilde’s best music to date, and it’s premiering on DIY below.