Oliver Coates

London native Oliver Coates has built a career as a cellist through collaborations spanning classical, alternative, experimental, and electronic realms while also developing his own forward-thinking solo projects. His first full-length release, Towards the Blessed Islands from 2013, featured reinterpretations of works by composers that extended from Iannis Xenakis through to Squarepusher. Later efforts such as 2016’s Upstepping and 2018’s Shelley's on Zenn-La extended this approach by merging his contemporary classical background with electronic elements, drawing in particular on British techno and garage traditions. Beyond his solo output, he has maintained a close partnership with Mica Levi and contributed to recordings by Radiohead, Actress, Laurel Halo, and additional artists.

Coates completed classical studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where he achieved the institution’s highest marks on record, and appeared with ensembles that include Aurora Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, and the London Sinfonietta. He soon began independent experiments, shaping solo material around the stark, austere electronic aesthetic associated with Autechre. Several joint pieces with composer Mira Calix appeared on the 2008 Warp collection The Elephant in the Room: 3 Commissions, a label also linked to Autechre. The pair further joined forces for a 2009 Warp20 (Recreated) version of Boards of Canada’s “In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country.” In 2011 Coates received the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award and took up an Artist in Residence position at London’s Southbank Centre. That same year he performed on Nico Muhly’s Seeing Is Believing and on the Jonny Greenwood scores for There Will Be Blood and The Master.

A 2012 project with composer Leo Abrahams yielded the electro-acoustic album Crystals Are Always Forming. Coates issued his debut solo album, Towards the Blessed Islands, in 2013. The next year saw the EP Another Fantasy, which presented his reading of the Bryce Hackford title track alongside two Hackford remixes. He also contributed to Mica Levi’s award-winning Under the Skin soundtrack released in 2014. His cello work featured on Radiohead’s 2016 release A Moon Shaped Pool, with Thom Yorke crediting Coates for a substantial influence on the record’s overall character. Also in 2016 he delivered his second solo album, Upstepping, constructed almost exclusively from cello and electronic manipulation yet rooted in British dance music, especially 1990s material by Orbital and U.K. garage styles; that year likewise brought the collaborative album Remain Calm with Levi.

Coates and Eliza Carthy shared a 2017 split 7" single offering versions of songs by Levi under her Micachu moniker. He then joined the roster of RVNG Intl., whose first release under the new arrangement was an LP of John Luther Adams’s Canticles of the Sky. Later in 2018 came Shelley's on Zenn-La, an original recording shaped by IDM and rave influences. Additional 2018 activity included appearances on albums by Actress and Laurel Halo together with Jonny Greenwood’s The Phantom Thread score and Daniel Pemberton’s One Strange Rock soundtrack.