OAN KIM'S dirty jazz
Fusing together his different musical influences, Paris-based photographer, video artist, and musician Oan Kim takes us on a journey of stylistic exploration with his new album Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz. The former Film Noir and Chinese Army members’ new direction is jazzier and more experimental, while nodding to his past so far in contemporary classical music and electro rock.
Writing, recording and producing the record in his home studio in Paris, the multifaceted musician and filmmaker’s DIY approach allowed the tracks to evolve freely “without ever knowing where they would take me, operating almost in a vacuum of space and time gave me a lot of freedom.”
Interview by Interlocutor Magazine
For your new album Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz, you've said “It was a deliberate decision to give the jazz saxophone a front position on what would otherwise be an indie music album.” What initially gave you the idea to make the saxophone so prominent on this album, and what are the particular elements to the work that you think make it otherwise an “indie music album,” rather than something that could be more strictly labeled a jazz album?
For some reason I started playing the saxophone again after a few years off and I really enjoyed playing and practicing it. I had focused on singing for a while and picking up the saxophone again after this time I realized that though my fingers were rusty, my phrasing had changed and probably improved because of the all the singing I'd been doing.
When I started laying some saxophone parts on the pop tracks I was working on I got excited about the idea of doing something that didn’t belong to just one genre but that was kind of ambiguous stylistically.
My approach to songwriting and production leans on the indie music side, where improvisation has a marginal part (unlike most of jazz music), chord progressions and melodies tend to be simple, I use a lot of samples and loops, and where the production part of the music making process is integral to the compositional process, not just something that comes at the end to polish a recording.
You recorded the album in your home studio, and you took a very free-form DIY approach to the compositions. You've described this approach as creating the works “without ever knowing where they would take me, operating almost in a vacuum of space and time gave me a lot of freedom.” Was this a completely new way of working for you? What do you think were some of the advantages and also some of the unique or unexpected challenges with this method?
Once I decided this project would try to cross over between different genres, I became more self-conscious of all the ways that I (largely unconsciously) censor myself when I'm creating. It happens naturally when you collaborate with other people because part of the work consists of finding common ground. You also tend to limit yourself to ideas that already belong to a certain style or genre, that are already accepted by a certain social group that you decide to belong to or target.
It wasn't a new way of working for me, that's how I do most of my music for hire, but this was new in that it was exploratory in nature. I had decided to leave all doors open and this allowed it. The challenge came after I'd done a few tracks, trying to figure out where this thing was steering towards generally.
I realized it was a bit all over the place but that my limitations made up for the lack of cohesiveness. Because I was playing or programming all the instruments I was also constrained either by my technical limitations (my guitar playing skills are limited!) or by the mechanical nature of using pre-recorded samples.
The album includes the acclaimed French jazz musicians Edward Perraud (playing on the songs “The Judge” and “Wong Kar Why”) and Nicolas Folmer (playing trumpet on “Quintet,” “Symphony for The Lost At Sea,” and “Fuzzy Landscape”). How did they become involved in the project? Have you worked with either one of them before? What are some of your favorite moments working with them, and what did they bring to the project that genuinely surprised you?
I play a little bit of trumpet and I had added some trumpet on a few tracks but my skill level is too amateurish to be recorded so I asked Nicolas Folmer to take part on the few tracks that had trumpet in them. He had recorded an album of songs by Miles Davis I listened to a lot, I really like his sound that's really mellow, so he was my first choice and luckily he accepted.
Edward Perrault is a friend from conservatory, we had never worked together but I really like the combination of imagination and energy that he brings to his playing, so I was happy to finally have the opportunity to collaborate with him.
There are two videos already released for songs from Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz: one for “Mambo,” and one for “Wong Kar Why.” They are both gorgeous and quite romantic in different and overlapping ways. You have worked as a photographer and filmmaker, and you directed both of these videos, bringing to them a strong visual acumen. First, a question about "Mambo": how closely did you work with the dancers Laura Bachman and Jakub Truszkowski with ideas towards the choreography, especially in relation to the various settings?
Wim Wenders’ film Pina came immediately to my mind with the particular choreography mixed with the urban environments. Were that film and the work of Pina Bausch an influence on the video? What were some other influences you also had in mind when putting this video together?
I gave the dancers two film references, one was a dance number by Fred Astaire where he sort of directs his partner with his hands like a puppet master, the other one was the film Pina. I wanted the dancers to play out an ambivalent seduction number, where there’s control, letting go, attraction and rejection all intertwined into one dance number.
I also really like the dance numbers in Godard movies and early Hal Hartley films that are a bit awkward in the most playful sense. I actually tried not to make the Pina influence too obvious, because I feel like it's set such a standard of how to film dance in the city, but in the end I wasn't that successful!
After I gave my initial directions the dancers prepared a few movements and actions that they then used to improvise. The only instructions I gave them during filming related to blocking, and sometimes to the balance between ‘narrative’ movements and abstract ones.
The video for “Wong Kar Why” is also labeled as a “documentary short,” as it is “a chronicle of a romance” with your wife Katherine “taken between 2016 to 2021 in various locations including Paris, Seoul, New York and Marseille.” Throughout the course of the years of shooting all of this intimate footage, did you always have an idea in mind of formally assembling it into a documentary, or did this notion come later?
The style of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai is evident throughout (particularly from his film In the Mood for Love). Since your approach as a composer is so visually-oriented, did the song “Wong Kar Why” itself spring from the visuals in this collection of footage? Also, what inspired your idea for the split-screen effect throughout the video, and how do you think it enhances the overall mood of the visuals and the song?
Originally I had intended to do a 20-to-30 minute long hybrid film between documentary, fiction and music video, but I ended up dropping that project and used the footage for this music video.
I usually decide on a title and write the lyrics at the very end the song writing and production process. In this case the influence of Wong Kar-wai was more indirect, but when I tried to imagine what this song could be about I immediately thought of his films, and for sure the congas that you hear are influenced by the music of Nat King Cole and Xavier Cugat that you hear in Wong Kar-wai movies.
But actually this song finds its inspiration from another movie, Wild at Heart by David Lynch. There’s a scene where Nicolas Cage sings this song “Love Me”, a classic Elvis love song, and I wanted to do a similar song. Not an Elvis version but a David Lynch version with an eerie twist.
I’m also a photographer and as a photographer I often pair images on opposite pages of a book or magazine so it was a natural thing for me to use a split screen in a similar way. I felt like it also offered a more immersive and complex experience since the narrative is otherwise quite simple. Once you place two images next to each other you force the viewer to look for connections, to make comparisons, you emphasize either mood or contrast, you can create a micro narrative or broaden the context. The use of split screen is also more associated with fiction than with documentary, so I liked the idea of using an unusual tool for that.
Many of the songs on Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz already have a strong improvisational feel and truly seem meant to be performed live to achieve their full impact. That said, are there any live shows or tours planned for the album in the near future?
Since this is the first album for this project I am focusing on touring at home in France first, we’re playing our first gig at the New Morning in Paris, the club where I saw my first jazz gig as a teenager (it was McCoy Tyner!) After that we're playing a couple of festivals that haven't announced their line ups yet, and hopefully more to come over the summer.
Oan Kim & The Dirty Jazz is out now.
Also, check out the recently released video for the album’s song “Agony” below. About it, Oan says:
“The video for ‘Agony’ is done in rotoscope animation, meaning it's hand drawn based on videos.
It's essentially a collage of clips taken everywhere to form a somewhat coherent narrative. I wanted it to be like a film noir but with a kind on edgy contemporary look. I found a talented young artist in Argentina [Romana Vashtar] to do the animation.”
