Listeners hoping to “get away from boring reality” are finding their way to Oliver Tree, who has earned over 150 million streams in 2019
EP through R&S Records — known for its association with the likes of Aphex Twin and James Blake — in 2013, he was already inventing personas to accompany the tunes. “He had Turbo, but he also had like ten other characters too,” says the electronic producer Whethan, an early collaborator and the co-writer of “Hurt.” “When we were recording he would turn off all the lights, put on different outfits. He was definitely in character mode.
Tree hit a roadblock when he was shelved by R&S. But the setback was only temporary: Daniel Awad, who manages Whethan, and his co-manager Danny Kang pooled their resources to buy the “Hurt” singer out of his previous deal for $30,000.
That type of absurdity is what caught the attention of Levin. “Another A&R had a clip [of Tree] on Vine acting as Turbo,” the A&R remembers. “It was aof him saying, ‘what’s up, my name is Turbo, I’m 32 years old … and I sell ecstasy to children at raves.’ It was so outrageous that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Levin found the persona intriguing enough to listen to Tree’s music on SoundCloud. “He’s writing these really sharp pop songs under the veneer of this alt world,” says David Pramik, a Grammy-nominated writer who worked with Tree on “Miracle Man.” “That’s compelling.” Levin felt similarly, and Atlantic signed Tree in 2017. He’s been dribbling out tracks in ones and twos ever since, teetering between hummable guitar pop and rap-rock.
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