Tim Koh: (Un)luckiest Man In The World?
Tim Koh, American multi-instrumentalist, composer and long-time fixture of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti is embarking upon the release of his debut album. Released via Tim Burgess’ O Genesis Records, ‘In Your Dreams’ is out worldwide September 18th. However, this is not the first time Koh has attempted to record his debut album.
“I’m just glad I had finished it,” Koh opens. “I had tried to make one years ago and then my laptop had got stolen when I was on tour with Ariel. I hadn’t saved it, so I had started to make another one. Then that got stolen.”
If there was an award for unluckiest man in this Zoom call, I would personally deliver Koh the award in a t-shirt designed to ironically look like a tuxedo. Although, despite it being possible for me to navigate from Salford to Berlin in a global pandemic, I will not be personally delivering any awards to anyone in this circumstance. Furthermore, despite his misfortune, Koh doesn’t look back with haste.
He elaborates upon the experience with a far from pessimistic viewpoint, critiquing his evolvement as an artist. “It’s the first time I’ve written something in a pop motility,” Koh adds. “In the past, outside of playing with Ariel, my stuff has always been on the experimental side like noise. I just wanted to make something more, accessible and less negational.”
Written between Amsterdam, LA and London whilst on tour with Ariel Pink, Koh claims ‘In Your Dreams’ took longer to complete than usual, “I go pretty fast, I don’t like to work on things for too long. Usually, it takes around 3-5 months to crank it out. However, with this one, because I was travelling so much and things happened in life, it just took me a lot longer. And then I was able to rework and change a lot.”
An LA native, Koh swapped the sunny shores of California for the canals of Amsterdam, saying goodbye to a strong network of family & friends, many of which are fellow musicians who were at his disposal to assist playing live.
Speaking of moving to Europe, Koh expands “My initial idea was to make everything one or two chords so that anyone could play it, so I could have a band,” he laughs. “And then I did that, kept working on them and got them to a point where I was happy with it. I could’ve maybe added more, but I lost so many files… it’s a bit short, just over thirty minutes.” He quips, “I had a lot of material. I had intended it to be much longer.” Despite being short in-length, ‘In Your Dreams’, presents a rich palette of textures. When I reiterate this to Koh, he simply replies, “I tend to fill the space a lot.”
We delve deeper into the writing on this record. Having been described as Koh’s, ‘most straightforward and accessible release to date’, I was keen to get Tim’s opinion on this. As a musician who aligns himself in experimental/noise genres, readers will probably be surprised to hear of a conventional style of writing on this record.
He relays, “I’ve done that with the band [Ariel Pink’s ‘Haunted Graffiti’] of course and other people, but never for myself.” He adds, “It’s harder. I don’t work so well alone, so it was a bit of a challenge but in the end I found a way of working in this way.”
Although the writing on this record has lent itself to the pop world, it is a far cry from being a pop record. “I play with different droves of music” explains Koh, “to emulate things, to give it something to go off of, to have a concept.”
Furthermore, recordings made in hospital by Koh, have found themselves subtly onto this record. In 2018, he suffered a near-fatal accident whilst on a flight, which saw the plane perform an emergency landing and Koh was subsequently rushed to hospital.
“I hadn’t intended on doing that [recording], when I was in the hospital, but it was hard to be in there. I was in this room, where everyone was basically dying. It was hard to just listen to everyone in there.” Koh adds, “I was told I wasn’t going to live. Just to deal with it, I remember Ariel [Rosenberg] being with me and telling me to listen to sounds in the room as something musical. I did that and that helped me to get through it, otherwise it was just torture.”
Elaborating more upon the usage of the hospital recordings on the album, Koh explains, “I ended up using some of the recordings on a couple of the songs, I guess to use it as a theme. I don’t know how much of a theme it became in the end but maybe on a couple of tracks.” He adds, “I wanted to use the same sounds throughout. Recurring things that linked them together in some ways.”
Although, recordings from his traumatic experience in hospital find their way onto his record, Koh reaffirms the record isn’t solely about his near-death experience, adding that the songs on the record ‘are fiction’. He adds, “it is constructed. I did write them at a time where I was sick, but I was going through a break-up and I had not intended on being so autobiographical or something.”
Koh reveals that he had sought help lyrically, by people who saw how horrible of a situation he had found himself in. Admitting that his situation may have influenced the lyrics to an extent, Koh reaffirms that his own writing is based on a combination of “his own history/biography, but I wouldn’t say it’s purely about me.”
Collaborators on the record include, multi-instrumentalist Chris Cohen, Jay Watson (Tame Impala/Pond/GUM) and Josh Da Costa (CMON). A stellar cast of musicians at Koh’s disposal, to add some additional flavour into the melting pot of Koh’s solo soup.
“There’s certain people who’s playing I thought would fit the song and they did it. I would’ve had more, but I didn’t want to bug everyone,” laughs Koh. Before revealing friend, Mac DeMarco, was scheduled to get involved on the album.
The mention of Mac DeMarco sparks a small tangent in our discussion, upon the importance of humour and not taking things too seriously in an industry that does just that. Ironically, I realise I am waffling on about seeing DeMarco some years ago and Mac bringing out a masked Michael Jackson impersonator on stage, before performing a rendition of ‘Billie Jean’. We revert back into original conversation smoothly.
Now Berlin-based, Koh’s debut record will be released closer to my own home than Koh’s, in the form of Tim Burgess’ O Genesis Recordings. “I had sent it to a bunch of labels, but for Tim, I just sent it to him just to listen too and he offered to put it out. I’m glad it’s worked out.. I respect what he does.” ‘In Your Dreams’ lands 18th September, including a ‘Dinked’ edition of the release. Assai Records define Dinked as ‘A group of like-minded independent record stores, who curate exclusive editions of key new releases as well as selectively chosen classics & archival records.’ Something of which Koh says he’s a fan of.
Aside of his musical endeavours, Koh hosts a monthly radio show ‘Kokonut Trip’ on London-based NTS Radio. Founded by Femi Adeyemi in 2011, Adeyemi reached out to Koh after reading an interview with him in Crack Magazine.
Speaking of Kokonut Trip, Koh adds “I always put some kind of social commentary in my shows, such as Trump or a current event in the news will make it in there. That’s my way of saying something about the world through my mix. It’s always a bit funny, but it’s my way of making a statement.”
We begin to close proceedings of our thirty-five-minute Zoom chinwag. Given the amount of curve balls this year has thrown at the universe, it almost impossible to speculate on the future. I ask Koh his plans post-release of ‘In Your Dreams’, “I hope to play live at some point. It’s not going to happen for a while, but I hope to play these songs and new material I’ve been working on,” he says.
Koh also reveals he’s been working on an album with Taraka Larson formerly of Brooklyn-based Prince Rama, “We did all by email over the course of a year and I’m super proud of it.”