BUILDING CONSENSUS
Words Hamish McKenzie

There are four parts to the band Kim Tak Building, but it would be wrong to call them separate. The four prefer to be known as a group – not individuals. So you don’t need to know that the band is three guys and a girl; that they are 33, 30, 26, and 26; that they are photographers, a construction worker and a soon-to-be teacher. All that is incidental. When one speaks, it’s the whole band speaking.

Kim Tak Building’s first album came out in April. It took four years to make: the band has been together for eight. The album is called In the Forest and the Field. The band can’t define its sound – it doesn’t want to be asked about that. People have said the album sounds relaxing, energetic, peaceful, tense – even scary. It is all of those. It is a sonic journey. It is ambient, it is rock, it is classical. It is excellent, but no-one’s told you about it: you’ll have to listen to it for yourself.

The band’s music is inextricably linked to its surrounds: In the Forest and the Field was fomented in a converted flat on the sixth floor of the Kim Tak Building in Jordan. The space has a profound influence on the band’s sound: “This place is not like a normal place. It’s special to us – it’s like going to a swimming pool. It’s different to the outside world. You go in, you have a special feeling and you do something you only do in a specific area.”

The studio has a bare concrete floor. Tall lamps are pointed artfully against the dimly-lit white walls. Guitars, amplifiers, a computer, a mixing desk, an electric piano are scattered in the wide space. There are pot plants. The four parts of Kim Tak Building sit in single armchairs in a circle. A stack of records standing on end is neatly arranged in two rows on the floor by the stereo system. Miles Davis’s Sketches of Spain fronts one row; God Speed You Black Emperor the other. The band has tried making music in other places, but it hasn’t come out the same. “Here is so Kim Tak
to us. The music we play in here is so
Kim Tak.”

The music is also so Hong Kong – Kim Tak Building has a passion for this city. “We believe in Hong Kong. We are influenced a lot by Hong Kong – the atmosphere here – this place is a strong influence.” That might seem odd to listeners – the restrained emotion and sleep-slow pace of In the Forest and the Field are in direct contrast to the bustle of the city. The music is an escape, a space in which to hide – but it wasn’t planned like that. There was no over-arching direction for the album – it was an evolving process, an experiment starting from the first song forward, built sample by sample, loop by loop, layer upon layer, using piano, guitars, drums, other instruments and a computer. They rate Mogwai, Mozart, Aphex Twin, Sigur Ros and Nintendo Gameboy among their influences. Elements of all are found in the music.

Of course, the CD isn’t selling well. It’s not the sort of music that does well in Hong Kong. “Most of the people don’t like this sort of music,” explains the band. “Everyone in Hong Kong is too busy. If the time in Hong Kong moved slower, I think the people would need this kind of music more.” Kim Tak Building’s music has no choruses; it isn’t particularly structured; there are no lyrics. That’s why the 1,000 copies of the self-financed work, available in small record shops and some bookstores, aren’t shifting off the
shelves in a hurry. “People can’t sing along with our music. That’s the problem.” The band says that if costs are recovered from album sales, it would be “a miracle”.

But Kim Tak Building is not worried about that. It’s the art that’s important. “We don’t just want to make music.” The CD comes in a small hardback book with a cloth cover adorned with intricate drawings of warped fantasy figures by one part of the band. All the songs – from opening track The Deer by the Lake to the closing The Boat in the Mist – are named after fairytales by the Brothers Grimm. The whole package, the band says, is like a storybook.
The band followed the same artistic approach in its only two live performances, in which the material played was not from the album. The group figured there was no point in going over exactly the same songs. The performances were remarkable for two reasons: firstly, the 35-minute gigs were performed for 30 guests – the band set a limit on the audience size – in their Kim Tak Building studio. And secondly, until then, the four members had never played together – previously, all the music was recorded in individual pieces. They practiced together for three months before the shows.

But that’s Kim Tak Building – slow-moving, original, surprising. They are no regular band, and they don’t have dollar signs in their eyes. In fact, when asked about their ultimate goal, the answer from each of the individuals was simple: to stay together as a band forever.
www.kimtak.hk