Santa Cruz’s Tree is staying true to his roots while getting airplay on the BBC.
Hauntingly ambient. Eerily inspiring. Not terms usually flung around when describing music, and even more surprising when tied to a barely 20-year-old musician producing music from his bedroom.
But when dealing with someone like Tree, all bets are off. In the last two years, he’s been signed to a six-year contract, flown to London to record, and received Thom Yorke’s permission to record his own version of Radiohead’s “Karma Police.”
Born Oliver Tree Nickell, the Santa Cruz native began making music around the time most of us were learning how to make mud in kindergarten.
“When I was 5 or 6 I began playing guitar and taking piano lessons,” explains Nickell. “In high school I was in a psychedelic jam band, but I was also doing rap projects on the side just for fun…I was also deejaying at that time.”
Cutting his teeth in the dubstep scene, Tree (performing as “Kryph”) began working with local DJ Minnesota. The two even made a video for their song “Next Level Shit,” a bass-driven dance ditty with a hilarious video—one that’s so popular that during our interview, several groups of 20-somethings interrupted to give the young artist props about it.
It was his DJ skills that sparked the interest of local electronic music production company, Vital SC. Known for their massive raves, Vital smelled so much potential in Nickell that they put him on the Wobbleland 2011 lineup, opening the stage for dubsteb stars like Skrillex and Nero. “I had some really great opportunities with them,” he remembers.
However, when his music began to evolve away from the dance scene, he decided it was time to do away with Kryph and turn a new leaf. That’s where the idea for Tree came about.
“It was a merging of all the projects I had done so far,” describes Nickell. “[Tree] created an open palette. I can do anything I want without feeling restrained.”
Armed with his new freedom, Tree began to push the boundaries of the electronic scene. Along with using traditional instruments and computer programs, he also recorded hundreds of random sounds from everyday objects to throw into the mix. Everything from toasters and Gameboys to scissors can be heard throughout the many layers of his hazy music world.
“I like to call it my ‘found audio collage,’” Nickell jokes.
Enter R&S Records. The Belgium-born, now London-based label found him at age 18 through Soundcloud. They signed him through their ambient subdivision, Apollo, known for releasing artists like Aphex Twin.
Before he knew what was happening, R&S whisked Nickell to London where he could record his debut EP Demons, released earlier this month.
“It was awesome,” he says. “I got to take all of the sound bites from my bedroom studio into the real studio and have a taste of what it’s like in the professional industry. I worked with a string quartet and even the drummer from Snow Patrol.” Snow Patrol’s publishing company, Polar Patrol, also picked Tree up during the session.
A few weeks after the release, BBC Radio 6 began playing it over the airwaves, with Tree’s version of “Karma Police” as the cornerstone.
“I changed it around and wrote some different verses. To make it my own, in a sense,” he says. “But as soon as you do that and sell it, you have to get approval [from the owner].”
That meant getting the nod from Thom Yorke.
“He’s one of my biggest influences, so it’s insane that he heard it, let alone approved me to do such a different take on it,” Tree grins. “That was a real blessing.”
Despite it all, the promising DJ’s roots stay firmly grounded in Santa Cruz while trying to take the Tree project to another level.
“The album features local artists like Haven Dlott, Lena Kuhn and Drew Grasso,” he explains. “We’re trying to make Tree into a collaboration of underground artists; we have artists, photographers, directors and even clothing. It’s on a lot of platforms, but each part is slowly building up.”
