The London-based English-Chinese artist Timothy Zha's music recharges the batteries of classic singer-songwriter tropes. Under the Organ Tapes moniker, he has built a body of work that collects influences spanning the traditional (Neil Young) and the forward-pushing (contemporary rap and dancehall). It’s an attempt at synthesis: between his geographically bisected upbringing, between his interest in classic folk music and newer vocal modification techniques, between the past, the present, and an unknown future. 

For the newest edition of Web of Influences, we talked to Zha about formative music moments growing up between England and China, his feelings about genre, and a lot more. His answers help to add narrative texture to an artist whose music is as slippery as it is influential. Read our interview and listen to his new EP, 一包烟 (Yi Bao Yan), which is out now on OST, below.

You grew up between London and Shanghai. What was it like being a music fan within this reality? 

As a kid I would only visit England once a year, so I was mostly just a music fan in China. But growing up far away from the center of the Western music industry definitely shaped me in a lot of ways. I was listening to Western music, but looking on from a distance.

Can you remember the first song you ever wrote?

Yes, I still have the MP3s. The recording process is how I started making songs initially, I never really “wrote” songs outside of that process. I recorded a few songs in Audacity, on a computer mic. It sounded a bit like the album Young Prayer by Panda Bear.

What is your history with rap and dancehall music? How does that inform how you work with production?

The techniques of rap production—sampling and treating existing sound as material to make stuff with—informed my way of making music a lot. I loved 90s rap growing up and then in university, Lil B, Keef, Waka, Gucci, etc. were huge. Contemporary dancehall I knew less about as a kid, that’s probably something that would’ve been different had I grown up in London. With dancehall it’s probably more the vocals that have influenced me, the incredible stuff artists like Alkaline do with their voice and also the beauty of the melodies.

What did your musical peer group look like when you started Organ Tapes? And how has that changed and developed through the years?

I didn’t have one at first, in that I was making music in a very isolated way. Music I was inspired by was my “musical peer group,” insofar as the music I loved felt inspired by similar impulses and sensibilities and feelings to mine. I think that sense still shapes who I view my musical peers as.

What excites you the most about your new record? How do you see it in conversation with your larger body of work?

It’s just nice to release something again. It’s what everything I’ve put out is, I think, which is music that is a continuation of what came before it, but that has changed, in the same way that I’m both the same person and not. Originally some of these songs were going to be on my next album, which will hopefully come out at some point this year too.

Your music has traversed a lot of different genres and styles. As an artist, how do you approach the concept of genre? Can it be helpful in developing a musical language? 

I think I do what feels right to me, as far as incorporating or being influenced by different music that I love. That is my music language, really, because I’m not really doing anything formally or aesthetically disconnected from what are basically typical popular forms/styles. I’m not really keen on painstaking recreation of something that already exists, but that’s not to say the song might not turn out sounding like something that already exists.

What music has been exciting you as a listener lately? Has any of it been directly inspiring you as an artist?

I’ve been listening to a lot of metal and dub and reggae. And country. It all inspires me.

Any major non-musical influences at the moment?

Living life is always the no.1 influence.

Do you have a favorite Neil Young song?

If I have to pick it’s “Harvest Moon.”

What does the dream Organ Tapes collaboration look like?

A couple of likeminded individuals making music.