Peerless Perth beatsmith Ta-Ku released his lovelorn opus Songs To Break Up To in late 2013. The ten-track EP is a collection of mellow, melancholic music that distills the essence of a broken heart. In the wake of his watershed release, Ta-Ku took an extended break from music to focus on other passions—launching a multi-medium creative project titled Create & Explore, a sneaker community called Team Cozy and even opening a barbershop in his home city.
Following an extended hiatus, Ta-Ku has returned to music with the release of Songs To Make Up To—a companion piece to his 2013 EP. The seven-track record is scheduled to arrive via Sydney imprint Future Classic and will be launched at a special Red Bull Music Academy x Boiler Room Chronicles broadcast on June 12. The new EP will be performed live for the first time at the upcoming show, with visuals provided by award-winning audio visual artist and talented multi-instrumentalist Sam Price (NAIK).
Ta-Ku has curated the entire broadcast, enlisting support from both local musicians and artists from afar. We caught up with the 2008 Red Bull Music Academy graduate to discuss his career trajectory, the creative processes employed in writing the new EP, the importance of collaboration and how he manages to juggle a variety of creative passions. We also touched on the significance of being based in Perth and what we can expect from the support acts on the night.
AIDAN BENNISON: The new EP is a follow-up to 2013’s Songs To Break Up To. The titles suggest a strong link between the two projects. I wanted to talk about how they are connected.
TA-KU:Songs To Break Up To was definitely my heartbreak EP. I recently went through some stuff and the only thing that could distract me was writing music. That’s how that project came about—it was more or less a healing process for me.
Songs To Make Up To is definitely a companion piece, but a lot of people think it is inspired by getting back with the person you broke up with or finding new love. To me, it’s really just about making up for lost time that you lose when you grieve over heartbreak. As corny as it sounds, it’s more about finding yourself and being OK with yourself again before you’re ready to do anything. It’s definitely more about self-journey, this EP, but it parallels quite nicely with finding love again by all means. Upon reading the title for the new record I was expecting something quite different to the last one, perhaps something happier, but that wasn’t really the case.
The messages behind the new EP are a little more optimistic but the feel is still the same. I definitely want the next step, which will be my album, to be the piece that finalises the journey that the three records tell. Songs To Make Up To is still a forlorn, sombre kind of experience with touches of hope and optimism sprinkled throughout.
The new EP features a host of collaborators, from fellow producer Sango to vocalists like Sunni Colon, JMSN and Jordan Rakei. How did these collaborations come about?
They came about quite organically; everyone that I collaborated with on the EP is more or less a friend of mine, or someone that I connect with on a personal level. It all just came about very naturally. I explained my ideas about the EP to them and they all got the concept and the ideas behind it. It was very much a natural process.
Although you’re no stranger to collaborations, Songs to Break Up To didn’t feature many guests. How did working with so many other artists on this project differ from the creative process used in writing your previous EP?
The Break Up To EP was very much me locking myself in my bedroom and making as much music as I could. I was really trying to capture how I felt with each song. There were a couple of collaborators on both—Atu is on there again, he was on the last record. I feel like working with others opens up a much more dynamic landscape. Also the way you approach a track, for instance with Jordan Rakei—he came over to Perth when he had a few shows here and we just made a few songs in the studio. The one that’s on the EP is actually kind of a two-track song.
I think collaboration can never be forced, there has to be a vibe. That’s definitely what it was when I collaborated with the people on this EP. It was very much a sending of ideas and adding to those ideas, seeing which ones worked best and getting rid of the ones which didn’t.
“I hardly wrote any music in 2014. I bought a camera and started taking a lot of photos, and started a few side ventures and businesses.”
After releasing Songs To Break Up To in 2013 you shifted your attention away from music for a while, having only returned recently with the upcoming EP. How did this time away influence your output? Judging from the sound of the new record, it seems as though you have returned revitalised.
I hardly wrote any music in 2014. I bought a camera and started taking a lot of photos, and started a few side ventures and businesses. I was at the point in 2013, when I finished Songs To Break Up To, where I was really over making music to be honest. Everything about the music industry wasn’t fitting well with me. I couldn’t sit down to make music or even listen to other people’s music.
That’s when I really started delving into the visual side of things. The more I did that and started to look at other ventures, the music bug inside of me started to grow bigger and bigger. I was almost itching to make music again at one point. I did a lot of world travel last year and coming back I couldn’t wait to get back in the studio and try to make things that were in my head the whole time. It was really refreshing.
You have a variety of other creative passions, from design, photography and fashion to the fine art of the haircut. How do you manage these different projects and how do they influence each other?
I think they are all very much visually based, from the barbershop to Create & Explore and the Team Cozy side of things. I make sure the visual aspect is a very important part of each thing I do; and I think buying the camera opened up ways to make sure I could communicate that to my audience. You know, all these things I’m getting into are all things I’m passionate about. It felt natural just to see how far I could explore them. At one point I was kind of stretching myself thin and I had to make sure my time management skills were up to par.
Your sound also seems to have diverged a little in recent years, expanding upon the dusty boom-bap palette that you worked with early on. Your recent output is far more polished. I wanted to find out what has influenced this shift.
I think for me, when I first started making music, it was very rough and sample based. It was very “bedroom producer”—trying things out and seeing what I could do. I know that fairly early on I rushed a lot of music out too, because I’m not good at finishing things. I don’t know how to play any instruments; I’m not a technical musician. I’m very much about the feel of it. But I think over time I just learned how to polish my sound and get tracks to sound how I wanted them to sound. It took a lot of time, making sure the sounds I used (and the way they were mixed and mastered) were tidy. I feel like that’s important to me these days—I want my music to sound like people expect it to sound. I listen to some things I made back in the day and there are keys out of tune, and samples that don’t loop properly. There has been a lot of fine-tuning along the way, but I think I’m at the stage now where everything has to be more considered and thought-out.
The upcoming broadcast is your third for Boiler Room. How will this performance differ from previous Boiler Room shows?
I think people that know me know that I don’t do many live shows. That’s just a personal preference. However, this Boiler Room is going to be a special one for me. It’s the start of where I wanted my live show to be strongly visual. We have a visual installation on the night, and this is the very first step towards what I want my live show to look like in the future.
It’s also going to be a very intimate show and I’m going to play the EP live in its entirety for the first time. I think it’s really special to be given the opportunity to do that via Boiler Room—to broadcast it to so many people, so it can be enjoyed by more than just those who are in the room.
“However, this Boiler Room is going to be a special one for me. It’s the start of where I wanted my live show to be strongly visual.”
You’ve curated the entire broadcast; tell me a little about the support acts. One of them appears on the new EP.
Jordan Rakei is a very special vocalist and keyboard player—he’s a very talented pianist, very jazz oriented. I think a lot of people are going to see his name over the next twelve months—nothing I can confirm publicly but I know that he’s got a lot of crazy opportunities in the works over in the UK. I’ve always been a fan of his stuff, and Lefto co-signs him quite strongly. He’s also just a really nice guy and someone that fits the bill perfectly because his live show is so soulful.
We also have Wafia coming over from Brisbane. She’s only young and she hasn’t had much music out yet but she’s actually one person that’s encouraged me to sing more on my own music. We send each other a lot of vocal snippets and ideas, and we’re building songs together that you’ll probably hear in the next few months. She’s an important collaborator to me.
There is also HWLS, of course. That’s my side project with another Perth producer called Kit Pop, another important project that I hold close to my heart. There’s another special guest, too.
You’re based in Perth, a city that isn’t exactly known for its hip-hop scene but nevertheless appears to have a tight-knit underground music community. How does your location feed into the music you make?
I think being in Perth is definitely an interesting one because it is so small and isolated. But then again, it pushes you to really push your music out harder and try and stand out more than you would normally, and really push and network to get your music heard around the world. I remember in the early stages Perth was full of amazing musicians—we had an amazing collective in Perth of bedroom producers and amateur singers that would just get together and share music with each other. It’s been a while since I’ve touched base with the Perth music scene because I’m always on the road but I know that everyone that was there from the beginning is still doing amazing things now. You hear people say there’s something in the water in Perth, you get really world class acts coming from here that do amazing things—Tame Impala, for instance—but personally it is a great place to live and it is an awesome place to relax, make music and do things that you are passionate about.
For the second installment of our series, iconic Perth beatmaker, Red Bull Music Academy Alumni (Barcelona 2008) and multidisciplinary creative Ta-ku will curate a very special live broadcast showcasing the influences and creative streams that have led him to this moment in his already storied career. Find out more information here.
