Tim Carr’s (Perfume Genius, Hand Habits) is a fixture of the singer-songwriter and session player communities in Los Angeles. He was raised in Novato, California, and at 18, Carr moved to Los Angeles to study jazz drums at California Institute of the Arts. Upon graduating, Carr pursued a scrappy career as a touring drummer with bands including The Americans and Fell Runner, in addition to producing for a handful of songwriters. In pockets away from the road, Carr’s introverted experiments with DIY production slowly shaped his debut, The Last Day of Fighting, which was widely released in 2016.
Carr is now based in the quiet Los Angeles neighborhood of Tujunga, at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains. His self-released latest album, Pleasure Drives, sparked shortly after the move to the Crescenta Valley. Pleasure Drives is out now.
Mood Board is our column where artists share a few things that inspired their new record. This time, Tim Carr — an LA-based musician, who also plays in Perfume Genius and Hand Habits — gives us a peek behind the curtain of his new record Pleasure Drives, which is out today.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
1. Pink & Blue
Pink & Blue is a reoccurring color theme. It has a sensual and fantastical quality that I’m continually drawn to. My last EP Swing & Turn ‘s cover art had a pink and blue image of a ballerina drawn by Hisui Sugiura, designed by Aaron Lowell Denton. This time, the cover is a saturated projection lit film portrait shot by cloudy thoughts, which inspired elements of futurism in the production of the songs. This color combination and neon aesthetic immediately seeped into the making of this music.
2. Fantasy
I’m not really a gamer but it was definitely a big part of my childhood, and I like thinking of things in life as video games. I hadn’t gone deep into one for a while, but I started playing a computer game called Disco Elysium while making the album, and I loved its originality and imagination. The game’s combination of techno and spiritual elements (e.g. cathedral dance club) influenced some of the production. Overall, I feel like the album has traces of video game/soundtrack-esque qualities.
The animation Asparagus by Suzan Pitt with score by Richard Teitelbaum really had an impact on me. I loved the surrealist eroticism and the hand painted style of animation. Both the music and imagery here were influential to the mood on the album, especially the intro to “Stranger Tonight.”
3. Technology: Futurism & Nostalgia
There are a lot of synths and digital grain in these songs. I was playing with collaging sounds from the past and present, aiming to land on something unfamiliar or almost uncomfortable to hear. The VHS film Dazzle by James Shiflett, which I stumbled upon online, inspired the music video for “Looking At Houses” — a particularly digital sounding track. My friend Grant Greer created similar kaleidoscopic animations and glitched out footage I sent him.
Films like Ex Machina and Blade Runner came to mind after choosing that album cover photo. I even reference the opening sequence in Blade Runner lyrically in “‘90s R&B.” I embraced a more electronic “in-the-box” sound and leaned into using computer software instruments and effects, with the exception of a few cassette tape recorded moments.
