This was no doubt going to be a love or hate relationship: me versus the undefinable, unpredictable and essentially left-of-the-curve Aimee Chapman, or Osh10. What I didn’t expect however was that I would be teetering on the side of love, with the exception of but a few tracks. Bearing in mind the raw production and obvious ‘90s garage electronica influence, Osh10 produces experimental melodies that encompass femininity and walk the line between irritatingly quirky and perfectly unique.
Like A Lion opens with This Lonely Room with obvious Portishead – and ‘90s influences – and slowly builds, at times reminding me of the vocal work on Royksopp track Sparks meets much of Bjork’s work, sometimes sounding almost drum and bass esque and other times sounding completely dreamy.
In terms of the ideas driving the production of Like A Lion and Aimee’s vocal work, there are some really huge potentialities here. She’s obviously a risk taker, so I do see her creating a very interesting body of work. The biggest problem with Like A Lion is that the lyrical content is not quite there, as times it can feel awfully obvious and there’s a little too much of it; the single Feline sounds like Meryl Bainbridge wrote an even quirkier borderline rap than usual and was actually my least favourite track, whilst being, well, a bit lame.
Having said that, I really look forward to Osh10’s next album given of course that the production is a tad cleaner and tighter and the lyrical content stripped back.
BY HANNAH MILLAR
Best Track: This Lonely Room
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: PORTISHEAD, BJORK
In A Word: Dreamy