We spoke to acclaimed artist The Silent Room who released his dreamy debut single ‘You’ll Never Know’ on September 6th via his imprint Meddle. The Silent Room is the solo moniker and new creative endeavour by UK-based producer and composer Tim Oliver. In the interview Tim reveals the inspiration behind The Silent Room, how his love for film scores influenced the project and what he’d personally change about the music industry. Stream ‘You’ll Never Know’ while reading the interview below:

What inspired the creation of your solo moniker with The Silent Room?

I’ve been a working musician for quite a long time now, this however is my first venture as a solo artist. It felt important to carve this out as distinct from my career up until now. The name The Silent Room has some quite significant personal connotations for me – and I’m going to keep those for myself, but it can mean whatever you want it to. However you connect with the music in that space is all good with me. 

Take us through your songwriting process. Are there any particular steps you take when putting music together?

I normally start with making a sound on a synth, I’m a keyboard player so I have the most fluency there. Once I have a little phrase, a chord or just a sound – something that resonates with me, I’ll get it sounding as interesting as I can, maybe with a chain of effects pedals, and then I’ll hit record before it evaporates. Once I’ve got that little core, I’ll start adding layers, maybe another section, and I’ll end up with a chunk of music that’s probably way too dense, but now I can start chipping away and refining it.

I do a hell of a lot of listening back to various versions when I’m out and about – in the car, on headphones when walking around or on the train. I find that I hear it differently than I would in the studio  – as a listener rather than a writer, and I catch things I wouldn’t otherwise catch as I’m too close to it. I find I come up with better vocal lines especially when I’m distracted with driving or walking.

So there’s a lot of throwing in the kitchen sink and then refining, but the end point of all this is to get it so it feels true and honest, and that it excites me sonically.

Tell us about your passion for film scores and how this has influenced the vision behind The Silent Room?

I’m currently devouring an excellent podcast series on film scores (Settling The Score) – which is a fascinating insight into the nuts and bolts of what makes a score work. A director will often know how to go about most parts of film making – they can make edits to a script, put up a light, frame a shot, but they can rarely come up with music – it’s a mysterious art to them, and once they find a composer they trust – it’s a bit of a sacred bond working on a very deep level of intuition.

There’s so many I love: Under The Skin – Mica Levi,  Blade Runner – Vangelis (of course), Vertigo and Psycho – Bernard Hermann, Alien – Jerry Goldsmith, E.T. – John Williams, The Virgin Suicides – Air, Once Upon A Time In America – Sergio Leone and Tron Legacy – Daft Punk.

There’s something immersive about all of these, the score transports and places you somewhere else entirely, whether that’s within the inner life of a character, a landscape, a mood, a plot or just an alternative perspective. There are some great needle drop scores that do the same thing too, Drive or Lost In Translation being great examples. I love that music that can do this to me. 

So whenever I’ve come to make music myself, I wind up instinctively making soundscapes that do just that. I approach a song with a mood or a sound first, very rarely a vocal line or a lyric. Once I feel like there’s some sort of world that’s been created, something resonant, the stage is then set for ideas and expressions to come in; lines, hooks, lyrics etc. I think this approach is probably what gives it a bit of a cinematic feel. It’s just the way I get there.

As a musician, it becomes apparent that there is a huge difference between the art and the business. Is there anything about the music scene that you would personally change?

I’m pretty new through the door here, so I don’t feel particularly qualified to talk about the business – but it does seem to me that requiring an artist to be a constant presence on social media to drum up interest can end up being really counterproductive. It’s an exhausting requirement for a someone starting out if you’re not that way inclined. I think they’re two separate jobs – being a social media personality, or a recording artist. I don’t think they’re happy bedfellows, one seems to sap the energy from the other.

There’s a real danger that if you start to commodify your art into tiny bitesize chunks for instant consumption, focus can easily start drifting to what gives the instant dopamine hits online – before you know it you’ve stopped serving your art, and you’re serving a brand or even just the online platforms. Sure, we have to use it for promotion, but for me it’s crucial to ringfence my creativity just for myself, go into the woodshed and work hard. The results from that kind of dedication and focus is ultimately what people really connect to anyway.

Is there any “non-musical” ingredient that is essential to crafting your sound ?

Time and space, and pyjamas.

Breakdown the news for us: what can we expect from you in the near future?

The next thing is the release of the full EP which is just round the corner now so obviously I’m looking forward to that – but my head is already into what will hopefully be a full album.  I’ve been thinking on a reasonably grand scale about ideas of chaos and purity and how they interact- it’s feeling like the big bang in reverse at the moment but let’s see what happens. I may well regret it.

There’s also a collaboration I’ve been working on with the singer Py which I can’t wait to find a home for – I love it, it’s still electronic but feels more edgy and organic. My default position is working on my own, I’ll always love that and I’m very comfy there, but I’ve got to say I’m looking forward to more collaborations. There’s a lot of magic to be found in the alchemy with the right people.

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