Ta-Ku is just one of those Midas-touch people where everything they put their hands on turns to gold. Whether it’s his sensual, sex-worthy production ventures, his visually orgasmic photography or his humble alternate career as a barber(!), he perfects everything in his path.
His latest EP, Songs to Make Up To, is a testament to that. Featuring lush vocal collaborations from the likes of Sango, Alina Baraz, Atu and more, it’s the sonic representation of his journey to self-acceptance in the wake of heartbreak. Somewhat gentler than his grimier earlier work, it offers you exactly the kind of musical hug you need when you’re unsure of yourself because some fuck-ass broke your heart.
And when he speaks instead of sings, Ta-Ku is famously transparent; his self-interview about Songs to Make Up To takes listeners through his process and emotional state behind every track on the EP, and his Instagram is a constant platform for him to share his life with his rabid fans. But, despite his communicative prowess across all mediums, there are still things no one knows about him. Things THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW. So, we caught up with him just before he stepped on stage for his first-ever L.A. show at NeueHouse in Hollywood, and he spilled some of his most secretive secret-y secrets.
While you read through the annals of his inner soul, press play on “Love Again,” the stand-out track from Songs to Make Up To.
I just don’t trust them. They’re tiny and they’re very quick, and I just get really nervous when there’s a bird loose, especially when it’s indoors like when people have them as pets. I get all antsy when they want to take them out of the cage. I just feel like I couldn’t catch them if something went down. Bats and hummingbirds are the worst. Even big birds, like pelicans. Birds in general, but small birds make me really upset, because they’re just a little bit unpredictable.
When I was a kid I had to walk to school all the time, and during Spring in Australia we would have magpies, actually not magpies, but they’re like small crows. During Spring, if you would walk near their nests they would swoop you, and that happened a lot, so I think that might contribute to why I’m scare of the birds.
Not in a melodramatic way, but I just kind of wanted to try to do something different. I think I was over making music for a little bit, but for some reason when I started trying different creative outlets, the music bug just kept on getting stronger and stronger, and I couldn’t ignore it.
There was a short time there where I was like, “Nah, I’m done making music,” which wouldn’t have been a huge thing, but to me it was a big thing, because music has been such a big part of my life for a couple of years.
During that time, I listened to audiobooks. If I was listening to music it was very rarely, but it was audiobooks or movie scores. There’s an artist I really like named Thomas Newman. I’m a huge fan of his work, which a lot of people might not know him. He’s done scores for Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile, Revolutionary Road, but I would just listen to him and nothing else for a long time.
I really love Lost In Translation due to the fact that the score and the actual soundtrack is amazing, but there isn’t actually too much dialogue in that movie. A lot of it’s told through strong visual storytelling, and small bits of body language and nuances that have to watch maybe a couple of times to pick up on it. I think Sophia Coppola is a really amazing storyteller and Lost In Translation is definitely a testament to that.
I go to Japan once every six months. I’ve been eight times now, and any time I go back it still feels like I’m there for the first time. It feels like such an amazing new place every time you visit. Just because there’s so much going on. It’s such a chaotic yet so uniform place. It’s really quite amazing.
So many clean lines, and so many portraits you can take in Japan, and it’s like a never ending source of photography. I think Japan is really special. There’s this one that I took in Arashiyama. We were walking along the river, and along the river you can see into restaurants along the river. There was this one couple that were sitting, and I’m pretty sure they were having a romantic dinner. I was watching their window for about half an hour, and it was so cold outside that the inside was fogging up, and the restaurant must have been quite warm, so there was just all this condensation just rolling down the window. You could see the outlines of both the female and the male, and the conversation they were having.
It was hard to tell whether they were actually breaking up or having a romantic time, but I was taking photos of them for a half an hour. There’s some really great photos of them looking like they were having an argument, or of them being totally enamored by each other, but you can’t really tell without knowing what they were talking about. It’s nice to kind of guess.
My mom is Filipino and my dad is Maori. When I catch up with his side of the family, because as a I tend to act a lot more manly than I actually am. I try to masculinize myself and push my chest back. My shoulders straight, my chest out. I don’t know if you ever met many New Zealanders but there’s a specific way they talk where they cut everything short, and the slang that they use is really specific. I know I’m doing it, so the fact that I’m conscious of knowing that I’m putting on this act, I laugh at myself. I don’t know why. I just identify with that culture a lot more, I want to feel like a manly man.
I don’t know whether that’s tragically funny, or tragically sad, but my dad just doesn’t know what I spend all this time doing, or even the fact that I make music. I think it’s funny. Me and dad are kind of close. We have a weird relationship. It’s funny I was just thinking about it the other day. It’s never come up, and whenever I see him, we tend to talk about other things other than that. I think I should tell him one day.
The last six months, K-Pop is literally all I listened to besides a few other people here and there. If you have a look at my most recently played, or my profile playlist, and my activity, it’s all K-Pop.
One of the girls from Girls Generation did an interview on YouTube and she said that she was into my music and that made my year.
I’m very much locked into it for the production value. I feel like even though a lot of these artists are supposedly manufactured by the labels, I think that there’s a lot that goes into making an artist, and the artists themselves they’re working very hard, actually. As a consumer of that kind of stuff, I do appreciate how much work they go through to give us this plateau of songs, productions, dances through clips.
The fandom fascinates me, too. I think the reason why is because the production value is so high, and the dedication goes into it. The consideration of this product, or this music, and the sound, and I really appreciate that.
It’s very well thought out, and the music is mad catchy, too. I’m a big fan of pop music in general, or music in general, and I really, really do appreciate a lot of K-Pop. There’s some amazing soul K-Pop by Zion T. I also like Crush, he’s like an affiliate of Zion T. He’d be the Chris Brown of the K-Pop world I think, and then there’s Red Velvet, this four piece girl band … I could go on.
