A Chat with UKofA (07.05.26)
UKofA turns fragments of everyday sound into something deeply human, balancing raw experimentation with songs that genuinely stay with you. His latest album, Time Will Take This All Away From Us, is out now, and we caught up with UKofA to discuss all things music below.
OSR: For readers discovering you for the first time, how would you describe UKofA in your own words?
UKofA: It’s a one-man alternative rock music project but with a pop twist. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household filled with records and CDs of all genres and eras, where Slayer sat comfortably next to the Spice Girls, and I would listen to both. That pretty much describes me now.
OSR: Time Will Take This All Away From Us feels very layered. What was the starting point for the album?
UKofA: I was working on a project that involved listening to a lot of library production music, music that, while it can be well-made, is often made to fit a brief and be easily classifiable. I wondered if it was possible to ‘recycle’ some of this material into something new and interesting. I started watching YouTube tutorials with artists like FourTet and began implementing new techniques into my workflow. I was just playing at first and then gradually wandered into a soundworld that I wanted to live in for a while.
OSR: You’ve worked across metal, experimental music, and alternative rock. How does that history show up in this release?
UKofA: Rock and metal are so ingrained in my musical psyche that even when I feel like I’m deviating from those genres, subconsciously I’m still being guided by them. I’ve played drums in a lot of bands, so there is an emphasis on rhythm and percussive sounds. I studied experimental music when I was younger, and it can mean different things to different people, but for me, one of the main lessons was that sometimes you just need to let the sound be what it wants to be. And in the modern era of endless samples and sounds, accepting and committing to a sound early on in the process helps keep my productivity healthy.
OSR: A lot of the album uses found sounds and samples. What draws you to working that way?
UKofA: I love the potential for new sounds, textures and experimentation. Sampling a sound, placing it in an unusual context and making it an integral part of a track early on can give the track a distinct sonic personality that you fall in love with, that I don’t often get from using library samples.
OSR: Was there a ‘turning point’ where you realised this project was becoming something bigger than you originally planned?
UKofA: I keep a list of all my musical ideas that I have on the go, and I usually have a column for how they might work together in different releases. I was actually working on a different kind of release with more live instrumentation like my previous album, but then I realised I had so many of these new ideas that were quite far along and felt like they could work together that I decided to pause the other project and concentrate on these instead.
OSR: How did your background as a video editor influence the way you built the album?
UKofA: I consider myself a musician before an editor; that said, there’s a lot more sound design and sound effects on this record than anything I’ve done before. So I haven’t really thought about that before, but on reflection it does feel like there’s some symbiosis going on between the two practices… cool question, got me thinking!
OSR: Which track changed the most between its first version and final version?
UKofA: There’s a track called ‘What I’ve Done’ which had a completely different arrangement and lyrics. Despite endless tinkering, it just wasn’t doing that much for me, but I loved the underlying soundbed that was the origin for the track. So I stripped everything back to the percussion tracks, picked up a bass guitar and started playing the 80s-style bassline over the top. The rest of the song happened very quickly after that.
OSR: Can you talk a bit about the home studio process versus the live recordings?
UKofA: Home recording obviously gives you a lot more freedom to work around your other commitments and to dip in and out and be playful because you’re not watching the clock. But there’s really something to be said for the discipline required to make a record in a professional studio where you have limited time. You have to be prepared, and it forces you to make choices that otherwise you could endlessly procrastinate over. So I try to apply that kind of discipline and mindset when I’m working at home – otherwise I would never finish anything!
OSR: The album feels quite cinematic at times. Did you imagine visuals while writing it?
UKofA: Yes, though not necessarily cinematically. I do see rhythmic structures in a visual way that I try to convey to the listener, sometimes more successfully than others. But I also love cinema, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the confluence of sound and image working together strongly influences the feel of a track that I’m working on.
OSR: What do you hope people feel when they listen to this record from start to finish?
UKofA: It is sequenced in a way to hopefully guide you through the musical and lyrical ideas that I wanted to express with this record, but I wouldn’t call it a journey. It’s a collection of songs and music that, despite often sounding quite different, maintains a cohesiveness of atmosphere. Right around the halfway point, there’s an instrumental track called ‘Mister Oblivion’ which, for me, acts as a quilting point for the record – bringing together both what comes before and after it. Ultimately, I hope it’s a satisfying listen and that people will want to listen to it again!
Many thanks to UKofA for speaking with us. Find out more about UKofA on his Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify.
