Coffee And Music And Romance With Oscar Key Sung

Cafe Romantica is a late night venue filled with old men drinking espressos, smoking cigars and talking about politics. It's an odd place to find two electronic musicians, but it's been a haunt of Melbourne's Oscar and Andras for long enough that they've named their new album after it. Oscar and Andy have been making tunes together for a little while now and, as a collective and as individual artists, their jams have been featured on Thump a bunch of times. They're currently gearing up to tour the country, so Oscar and I caught up for a coffee to talk about Cafe Romantica (the place and the record), as well as what the duo have in store for their next album.

THUMP: So what's your pool game like?
Well I have a pretty long running history with pool, if we're going to go from the beginning.

I kind of started developing my chops early on. At Primary school, we had a table and we all used to gather round and play after school, and from there when I moved to high school. I was hanging out with my sort of punky friends who were all into mohawks, and drinking beer underage who were also really into. We all used to head to the Q Bar on Brunswick st after class, and we'd all sit around playing pool, and fantasise about getting into fights with jocks from the other high school, who were also playing at the other side of the hall.

Was this when you were reading "The Outsider's" for English class?
Totally, yeah. And then I sort of forgot about pool for a while, but then we got a pool table at the house I was living in, and all the housemates got really into it. When my girlfriend at the time broke up with me, I got really OCD down, and would spend all my time just playing pool by myself.

So your pool games strong?
Yeah I guess, I was playing a lot. And then sometimes under pressure, I wasn't able to perform. But I feel I've overcome that now.

Yeah I guess once you're playing a concert, you probably overcome those fears.
Yeah exactly, the gigs help with that.

So what do you order when you go to Cafe Romantica?
Well it depends if i'm drinking beers or not, but I tend to order a chinotto, and a ortolano or a margherita. The ortolano is basically eggplant and mushroom, but I was there last night and I got a margarita. You have to have it with lots of chilli oil, and parmesan. They've also got nice homebrew.

How long have you been going to Cafe Romantica?
I've been going there for years. When I was living on Barclay St, I had a friend called Micky Zaliki, in year 11 and 12 and him and I both had insomnia, so we used to meet up and talk about prog rock and shoot pool. He was a good player.

Obviously spending time at Cafe Romantica and Embassy Cafe has given you a good impression of Melbourne cafe culture?

Yeah, it's like an inner city thing. Not sure if it's quite as much a thing in Perth and Brisbane?

Well you can't smoke a ciggie at a cafe in Perth, I think you've got to be at least ten metres away from it.
That's full on. It's can be a police state here in Australia. Anyway, but I think the night cafe culture is a thing, and I think the reason why it's extra exciting is because it doesn't really exist that much, it's hard to find. Which is why I'm always going on about how Australia is so amazing in the deep night, it's like a ghost town and you're  a kid in a fantasy where the only people left are you, and the other kids with you. Because everything is closed, and there's this 24 hour cafe which is kind of like a mirage.

So Cafe Romantica to you is liking a shining beacon of culture and light night romantics?
You've really pinned me against the wall with this one… Yes Cafe Romantica is a shining beacon of culture and late night romantics. No what I mean is that it's like a playground in the night.

Does Cafe Romantica live up to it's name, have you had some romantic times at Cafe Romantica?
Sure, yeah. And I love the way there's the kind of cafe matriarch, Grace. She's very friendly.

So in the concept of this album, the last one was Embassy Cafe, this ones Cafe Romantica. How has the music developed as you've shifted venues?
I guess when we were making the content for Embassy Cafe we didn't know we were making something for a record, where as this one. It was more. "Let's work on another record". So it's much more of a conscious process. Every time you do something you iron more of the creases, and you figure how to make things a bit easier, a bit faster, and a bit more for effective in their outcome.

So you feel it's a more constructed album then your last one?
More than the last one, but that's not really saying much.

So in regards to a future album, do you have your cafe destination thought out?
No, because it's  an emergent sort of thing. We didn't know it was going to be Cafe Romantica at the start. It sort of just emerged, as we found ourselves hanging there after sessions. Andy doesn't live on the Northside anymore, and I've just moved to Clifton Hill. So we've both moved again, so we'll see what ends up being the joint. Andy I were talking about it the other day. We've done a couple of tracks that we want to put out that aren't on the record, that are more of a deep house kind of sound. But we've talking about some sort of funky, jazz fusion, freak out thing. Which is really hilarious, or doing a garage sound. We want to do something a bit different.

So you could potentially move on from the cafe to a bar, or a club?
It might not even be a bar, or a club. It might be a more efenral, esoteric kind of notion that we choose to go with.

Sounds romantic.
Andy doesn't want to be classified as a romantic forever. Sometimes it feels like my influence, because when I'm improvising, it very quickly becomes romantic.

Do you think there's a time when romance dies?
I'll let you know.

It will be all love during Andras and Oscar's Cafe Romantica tour. Find all the dates and details here.