Oscar Scheller is armed with heart-throb looks and sugary hooks. If it wasn’t for Oscar Pistorius and the Academy Awards rendering his name ungoogleable, not to mention the difficulty of staying afloat as an independent act in 2016, the London crooner’s career would seem preordained. His debut album belligerently establishes this art school boho’s fey Britpop status: he pummels his songs with dandyish imagery, an adversity to laddishness (“Tell me who I should support / Red team, green team?”) and a tendency for lovestruck melodrama (“Then I see your face and I want to die”). Its songs are bereft of Britpop’s social commentary, and instead its story lies within its DIY creation – a bedroom pop star occupying his days with GarageBand rather than narcotics. Cut and Paste’s melodies are glorious – single Daffodil Days is surging and swoonsome – but with lyrics so surface, you sometimes wish he’d get out a bit more.
