Chillteens founder Oscar Tecu has been busy over the past few months putting the finishing touches on his upcoming debut as lil Omar.
Matt Carter
During these times of lockdown and isolation, Chillteens founder Oscar Tecu has turned his attention to exploring his work as a solo artist. Today, Tecu announced plans to release a full-length solo album in June under the name, lil Omar.
Today’s announcement comes packaged with Romantic Scene (Sing Your Own Song), a beautifully moody instrumental track from the forthcoming album, Toddler Country.
“These songs are a collection of older and newer songs that don’t feel quite right for my main project Chillteens,” said Tecu. “I used to write and record all the parts myself for Chillteens, but now that the band has an actual line-up, everyone writes their own stuff.”
In June of 2018, Tecu purchased a TEAC 4-track reel-to-reel recorder from Sackville-based musician Jon McKiel. This foray into the world of analog recording proved to be the inspiration Tecu was looking for.
“I started to experiment with tape and all that fun analog equipment,” he said. “I also started playing piano around that time. The album will include love songs, lullaby instrumentals, movie soundtrack music, bossa nova in Spanish, and a dream-pop synth collaboration featuring Denmother.”
Up until the various safety precautions put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 put a stop to all live performances and gatherings of all sorts, Tecu and his band mates in Chillteens had been working on writing a new album. That project, for the time being, has been put on hold.
“Chillteens had been working on an album and planned to release it at some point this year,” said Tecu. “With concerts being cancelled, we’ve decided to wait until shows start happening again. Who knows? In the meantime, I’ve been busy playing around with all this vintage analog gear and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. And since the songs started to accumulate, I figured why not put out an album?”
Toddler Country arrives June 5 via Bandcamp.
