Taka is a New York born electronic artist and DJ whose work combines a background in hip-hop production with influences ranging from IDM and ambient to techno. His new record, Part 1: Fear of Living, came out last week on 10K. It’s an electronica brainwarper that sits within a larger lineage of electronica brainwarpers—it’s a great listen for mid-life Autechre fans and Zoomer OPN worshippers alike. We caught up with Taka for a quick chat while he was on a North American tour performing with MIKE. An edited interview is below.

I'm curious what got you into making music to begin with? 

Taka:A long time ago I went to meet my brother in South Carolina. He played me some music that a friend of his had produced, and also played me some songs from Little Brother. I liked the beats. I was like, how do you make beats? He put me onto Fruity Loops at the time, and I tried to make music then—this is, like, 2008. But I didn't really take it back up until high school. I guess at the time I was listening to more electronic stuff, like YMO, and I just wanted to make music like that. It put me onto trying to make music off of synthesizers.

I'm curious how you've seen your sound develop? It’s interesting you mentioned Little Brother, because in your earlier stuff there is a rap influence.

Maybe in like 2012, I was making more traditional hip hop production, from listening to Little Brother, and listening to people like 9th Wonder, Madlib, and J Dilla. I was inspired by the MPC and the machines that those producers were using to make the music, and the more I looked into the machines, the more I would find out about different styles. And then that's how I got into Yellow Magic Orchestra, just following how electronic music, and electronic musical instruments have spanned from one genre to the next. It led me to find out about different types of music and want to be a part of those styles of music. 

So how are you making tracks nowadays on the new record? Are you using hardware a lot? 

Yes and no. For this recent project, it was mostly done in Ableton, just using VSTs—lots of string VSTs—and also outside the box, using some modular stuff, Buchla stuff to put accents on things. There's some songs with guitar on it. Yeah, so some of this stuff is mostly in the box, but when I've had a chance to sit down and try to add other things outside of Ableton, there's some of that on most of the songs. 

I'm curious to know a bit more about wav.run. You're posting some real lDM deep cuts on there, for lack of better words. How does that sort of curatorial side of what you do inspire you as a music maker? 

I'd say the wav.run stuff pretty much started off as me and my friend Mike DJing together, a friend found a CDJ during the pandemic, and we would just buy CDs to play on them. It was initially just the name of the show that I was DJing for, for IFE Radio. We started putting out mixes and things, and just sharing music that we enjoyed through mixes. And then I wanted to take some of the music that I had and put it out. Maybe some things that were hard to find, like if I tried to look for it on Spotify, I wouldn't see it. I don't know, just share some music that I enjoyed and wanted other people to enjoy, but I feel weird about posting other people's music. Something about it feels really crazy. 

Well, I mean, it's pretty obscure stuff. I'm sure none of these artists would mind too much, if at all. 

I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's nice for people to be able to hear it, I think. 

For sure. There's a real sonic viewpoint there, you’re not just throwing random shit up. If you listen to all this stuff together, it coheres into a musical world. Do you look at that almost like a moodboard when you're making your own music? 

Maybe, maybe not. I think that stuff is mostly CDs that I have that I enjoy. Maybe I don't listen to them all the time, because I feel like I listen to the same stuff over and over and over and over. But the stuff that I do post, maybe it's not something I listen to over and over. The stuff that I would listen to, the stuff that I listen to while I was making the project, maybe wasn't the same as the albums that I was posting for wav.run. I think maybe the album that I listened to the most that inspired the project was Loophole by Sketch Show. 

And what kind of record is that?

It's Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi from YMO as a duo. I kind of don't want to put it into a genre. But I think it for the most part it feels pop-ish, but it also feels very computer music-ish. I don't know how to explain it. 

And that was an inspiration on the new record?

Yeah, a lot of listening to that album and listening to Vespertine by Björk, and Opiate. 

What does the name come from, Part 1: Fear of Living? Is this going to be an extended series? 

It’s two different, I guess, feelings. I kind of wanted to split it, rather than just have it all grouped up in one body of work.

So what's the difference between those feelings for you? 

I think the fear of living is based on things I would watch, or something I would read, or just the music I was listening to. I watched a lot of Boogiepop, for some strange reason. And I guess that’s inspired by the show a bit, but also just the idea of people having a life and being afraid to enjoy it as much as they can, kind of by being afraid of things. And how people being afraid of things pretty much cuts off, or gives a limit to how much they can enjoy things around them. So it's, like, fear of living … You have to live, so you can't be afraid to live. 

And then what's the converse of that? What's part two? 

I'm not sure. More music. 

So you're on tour right now. Eating on the road, it can be good and it can be bad. Have you had any good meals on this tour? 

Yeah, there was a French restaurant we went to in Montreal. It was pretty good. I had a steak and some fries. 

And the show's have been good? What kind of crowds are coming out? 

The shows have been cool. I don't know, everyone seems pretty gassed up. Pretty happy to be there. Excited to see everyone, really. A lot of the kids are young, like Gen Z-ish, I guess, maybe. There's some older fans and some younger fans. You might catch a couple. 

Out on a date? 

Yeah, chilling, listening to hip hop.