Your New Favourite Band: Toby Kaar interview

Hey Toby, thanks for your time. If the reaction on twitter was anything to go by, you seemed to be one of/ if not the most talked about acts of the Whelans’ One To Watch event. Have you noticed a bit more attention come your way since?

Yeah, definitely. Most of my shows before that were in Cork, where there isn't this huge online community of blogs and people generally find out about music by being at a gig. After that Whelan's gig I suddenly had a load of people following me on Twitter and my Soundcloud plays like, doubled, I think. I was pretty surprised by that...

For those of us who missed that show, there was plenty of tracks on your soundcloud page to cathc up on what all the excitement was about. Like say someone like Star Singer, are you a fan of just getting tracks out there for people to hear as soon as they’re done?

I wish I could be as prolific as Star Slinger! I think that right now, it's really good for me to make the tracks available because I'm doing remixes and a lot of my output is.. disparate. I don't see the point in sitting on tracks, waiting to get them signed, because they can lose their relevance, both to the producer and the audience. Back when I actually looked after my Myspace page, I had tracks that I didn't want up online because they were going to be "the singles off my debut album" or something like that. Nowadays those tracks hold no appeal to me and not many people are going to hear them because of that...

You’re studying music in Bath right now, what sort of impact has the course had on the music you’re making?

The course (Creative Music Technology) is really amazing. A big focus is placed on our creative development, so we're remixing tracks or making tracks with very specific features. At the same time, a lot of emphasis is put on the science and engineering side of music, like signal processing and mastering, that kind of thing. Since I started the course, I can trace a progression in my tracks, where I've begun to look at producing differently and really listen critically to how my tracks sound. I guess it's pushed me to take my music a lot more seriously. Or something like that.

Is there a good music scene in the uni/city? Do you find it a good place to make music in?  

There isn't really. Bath's a really beautiful city, but very quiet and quaint English. There's some filthy dubstep and pop-rock but not much else. A group of guys from my class have set up an amazing night for more left field music called the Cutting Edge, so they're starting to get lots of electronic, hip hop stuff in. Which is something I couldn't believe would happen in Bath. I've got a residency with them and might be releasing a track on a weird experimental label of theirs in the future...

How do you generally record your music - is it mostly/all electronic? Does the format change much from track to track?

It's mostly electronic, yeah. I have a mic and some instruments that I use when I'm totally out of ideas, but for speed and ease of use, I just use soft synths and samplers. I've been using the same general setup for years, but as I get new gear it does work its way in. I got Native Instruments Komplete for Christmas, so a lot of my tracks now are using the instruments in that...

I noticed you tweeted about a Tim Exile record the other day and said that although it was powerful as hell, it seemed a tad IDM/gimmicky. As an electronic artist, how do you make sure your music veers away from that and has heart and depth to it, something that a tune like ‘Babyleaf’ has in spades by the way.

Ah thanks man! That tweet about Tim Exile was actually about a piece of software called the Finger, which really mangles up sounds put into it, but the idea is still the same. The heart in a song has always been the most important thing for me, and if that doesn't work, then the whole track doesn't work for me. I think you have to look at those kinds of tracks as a composer, or even a song writer, rather than just a producer. Ask yourself if the track you're making actually means anything to you, or if it's just a mass of kick ass drums and bleeps.

Your name has been mentioned next to the likes of Jamie XX, Baths and Mount Kimbie. I know you call the ‘sounds like’ category on myspace the stupidest one ever but are they acts you’re fans of? What have you been listening to/influenced by of late?

Oh yeah, I love those artists, but I don't see a huge similarity between me and them. It's kind of why I don't like the whole "sounds like" idea, because people are going to focus on different things in music and make these comparisons that are, you know, entirely subjective. Like on that Nouveaunoise remix, someone said it sounded like Bonobo, which I can't hear at all in the track. I was pretty stoked anyway.

I've listened to a lot of things recently, but some music that's been influencing me: Oneohtrix Point Never, Mustapha Tette Adem, Theo Parrish, Efdemin, Orchestra Baobab, Toshimaru Nakamura, Oh No. And Four Tet, all the time, ever.  

You’re coming over to Dublin for your first headline show in Whelans next week - talk us through your live set up and how you transfer your music over to a live setting?

Well it's all run through a laptop, where I have the different parts and sections of tracks set up so they play in time together, but I can rearrange them and process each track separately. I might have the drums on two tracks and cut out one track for a breakdown, or apply an effect to both tracks.  

Then there's the Monome, which I load up with samples I can chop in real time, so I might have the main hook playing and I can restart it and loop it and stuff like that. It's the closest I get to actually playing an instrument, I guess.

I've got a couple of new bits lined up for Whelan's too. I'm trying to get a Playstation keytar to fit in with the set. And if things go well I'll be playing a cover with a vocoder. For the craic, like.

What’s the plan beyond that? Do you have any full releases planned or can we can expect another new tune or two on the soundcloud page? Also any more remixes in the works? The Nouveaunoise one is a belter.

I don't have any proper plans for an album of new material, mainly because I'm bored of one track once I've made a newer one. But I work on tracks every day and I'm starting to make a collection of tracks that are similar, so there might be some kind of release in the future. I'm sure there'll be new tracks up on Soundcloud whenever I finish them. And actually yeah, most of my time right now is spent remixing, I kinda went nuts asking to remix people. I don't know if I can name everyone, but I'm hoping to finish remixes by Sacred Animals and Throwing Snow in the next month or two. Which is nice.

And finally, who are your new favourite bands?

Oscar McClure, a producer on Matthewdavid's Leaving Records. He's in this amazing twilight zone between noise, hip hop and music concrete..

Das Racist. I don't even know what kind of rap this is, but their flow is mindblowing.

If you need a third? Moths, like. Everyone in Ireland should have heard this guy by now...  

Toby Kaar plays Upstairs at Whelans on Saturday, with support from Choerex. Tickets, priced 10 euros, are available here.