Producer/Instrumentalist Oatmello Rocks Lofi World with ‘Sanctuary’ LP
October 28, 2022 BY Jason Currell
Today, Portland-based producer and multi-faceted creative Oatmello shares his new album Sanctuary. The 15-track project marks his first LP release with Nettwerk.
One of the first Lofi artists to gain traction on Soundcloud and develop the sound of the genre today, Oatmello blends elements of jazz, ambient, hip hop, and electronic into a dream-like, introspective experience that has accumulated over 250M streams worldwide. Envisioned as an antidote to our current world of attention-demanding media, constant notifications, and building anxiety, Oatmello sees his music as a continuation of the decades-long tradition of instrumental hip-hop.
Sanctuary arrives on the heels of months of weekly singles, which have seen phenomenal results. In total, the singles preceding the project have amassed over 4.1 million streams, with 3.8 million coming from Spotify. Multiple tracks have hit the number one spot on Spotify’s “lofi beats” playlist (4.7M likes).
Nearly every song on Sanctuary features piano as the lead instrument, which Oatmello did intentionally. The album’s tendency toward free-flowing compositions allowed Oatmello to put his piano-playing talents on center stage.
“When coming up with the concept of the album from a musical standpoint, I reflected on the lofi albums which I enjoy the most and the ones that have stood the test of time,” he shares. “The commonality is that they rely on a solo instrumentation (whether that is guitar or piano or synth), along with a sense of minimalism to the production.“
Sanctuary is available at digital retailers here: https://oatmello.ffm.to/sanctuary
SANCTUARY TRACKLIST
01. Wo Ai Ni
02. Community
03. You and I Will Always Be
04. Watercolors
05. Lucid Dream
06. Thicket
07. Twenty Bucks
08. A Future Vision
09. All Beings United
10. Each Moment More Than the Last
11. Telekinetic
12. Best to Find a Way
13. Goodbyes
14. Simplicity
15. Alice and the Sea
