Second Platoon Bravo

Oliver Tank laughs at the suggestion that he's in any way affiliated with Sydney's Flume or Melbourne's Chet Faker. At this point, it's perhaps a justifiable reaction. Over the past 12 months, both Flume and Faker have taken Australian electronic music to a level of commercial success and popular awareness far beyond what anyone would have predicted. But, Oliver Tank's career began with the same movement.

“It's flattering. I don't know if I'd consider myself to be in the same league as the Flumes and the Chet Fakers. Maybe in their infancy I was. I'll hopefully be up there one day, anyway,” he laughs. “I do think electronic production's been so down-skilled and become so much cheaper to do has just made it that kids are now learning production in the way kids used to learn guitar growing up. I think that's what it comes down to, really.”

Tank delivered his debut EP Dreams in late-2011. Since then, he's performed alongside Megan Washington and Active Child at the Sydney Opera House, toured to the UK (where he played both the Liverpool Sound Conference and The Great Escape), performed as part of Brisbane's BIGSOUND conference and enjoyed strong headline shows across both Australia and the UK.

The key difference between Tank and his peers is that he didn't actually release any new material over that period. While his career appeared to be taking off, Tank was in actuality struggling with writer's block and a series of undisclosed personal issues that kept him away from making music for nearly a year. It's only in recent months he's managed to pull himself back into the studio.

“Well, I won't go into too much detail, but basically, a few things took me away from my music and I wasn't able to focus on it as much as I'd have liked. I mean, no one died or anything – but it was enough of a challenge for me to sort of deviate from my music for a bit,” Tank says. “But, you know what, I'm kind of glad because I'm happy with the way my career's gone so far and I'm excited to be delivering some new music.”

Tank's second EP Slow Motion Music will be released later this year, and he'll be previewing some of the material on his current tour. Tank is a different kind of artist. Where most electronic musicians are more production-driven, Tank is very much a live musician and songwriter. His productions often feature his own vocals, and as a live performer he actually avoids using laptops.

“I don't play with a laptop. I basically run all my beats and all my synths on a sampler and then I build on top of that with a drum pad, a guitar and some singing,” the producer explains. “I don't really like to be doing nothing on stage. Because I'm kind of awkward and I feel uncomfortable if I'm not busy doing stuff. I did play with a laptop originally, before I released Dreams, but it just didn't work out.

“Plus, so many other artists in the electronic genre use laptops when they play live. I don't have a problem with it if they don't take away from the live show,” he says diplomatically. “But, for me, I found that I really preferred and enjoyed the live nature of my set-up.”