An Afternoon On The Phone With David Coulter
Pictures kindly provided by David Coulter. Interview and text by “Super” Jack Seda-Schreiber
A lot of you are probably asking yourselves the same question right now, who is David Coulter and what is he doing in my “Plastic Beach” zine? Well, to put it in David Coulter’s own words, “David Coulter is a slow-burning musical craftsman, sonic collaborator and follower of the road less traveled.” But to put it in my own words, David Coulter is a musical nomad of sorts. You all have probably heard David Coulter’s work before in some form without even knowing it.
Growing up in a musical family, David Coulter grew up admiring the strings underneath their family’s piano as opposed to playing the actual thing. He then proceeded to learn the Jew’s Harp, an instrument you play with your lips, teeth and tongue. This was the first instrument he owns, and he owns a Jew’s Harp in every key, a chromatic set of Jew’s Harps. He then proceeded to as website Discogs put it become “widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost musical saw players” (“Who writes this shit?!” he says in response to learning this). The saw is a beautiful instrument which makes a sound that comes with off a frequency that lands somewhere in between that of a violin and a theremin. One of his first big breaks was scoring a kids TV show in Australia, to prepare for this show he learned the Australian instrument, the didgeridoo. The didgeridoo is yet another strange instrument, albeit a much more popular one. This mastering of the didgeridoo led him to, as his website put it, “play the didgeridoo at the invitation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on a number of official occasions.” (“I’ve played the didgeridoo seriously for 20 years” says David when asked about this). To sum this up, David is a lover of weird instruments and this became his gateway into the music industry world.
The list of bands David has been in includes: The Pogues and Test Department and the list of acts that David has played with includes but is not limited to: Beck, Jarvis Cocker, Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Michael Gira, Lydia Lunch, Laurie Anderson and, yes, Gorillaz.
David Coulter met Damon Albarn at his house in 2006. Damon had seen his work as a theater director for Tom Waits (“I’m mainly known for my theater work these days” says David in an aside). Damon was so impressed that he asked David to be the musical director and conductor for a new theater production him and Jamie were working on, called “Monkey: Journey To The West”. David Coulter was not really familiar with the “hip hop” works of Gorillaz. What drove David to wanting to be a part of this project was actually Damon’s work on the 2002 standalone project, “Mali Music”, a brilliant often forgotten experimental record which fused rhythmic Mali sounds with the experimental dubby electronic aesthetic that Gorillaz were then known for. Lucky for David, the “Monkey” opera was going to be a very left field project.
Being the musical director meant that David Coulter served as an almost third man in command for the project behind Damon and Jamie. He would oversee it all whether it was Jamie casting the characters in Beijing or Damon recording the demos and guide tracks of the opera’s score. While being in the studio with Damon, David got to see his usual process. Damon would go into the studio and immediately drift to an instrument and start playing. The engineer, Stephen Sedgwick, would then record whatever it was Damon would do and save it for later usage. One particular moment David can recall, is Damon coming into the studio playing “the most beautiful song” on his signature four stringed acoustic guitar. After he sang it, he asked David to play a musical saw melody on it and this beautiful song became stand out “Monkey” track, “The Living Sea.”
“Monkey” saw Damon trying to step out of his comfort zone. After spending some time in Beijing, he began to be obsessed with the sounds of car horns and traffic in the streets. He asked David to help him make a new instrument that sampled the sounds of everyday Beijing, this instrument was called the Klaxophone. Designed to “look like an arcade cabinet,” the Klaxophone was so loud that it caused everything around to ”shake” or be pushed back like a character would be in an “old cartoon.” There was talk of them not being able to use it, but David was persistent (mainly due to how outrageously expensive it was). To accommodate they built a glass wall around the Klaxophone when it was played in the pit for each production of the show.
Of course, “Monkey” was a huge success leading to bigger and even better productions at both the London arena, the O2 and a bigger and more extravagant one in Paris. Damon and David remained close for a long time, often using each other in their projects. The next time they met was at a Greenpeace festival Brian Eno was organizing in 2008 where Damon’s band, The Good, The Bad & The Queen played. David Coulter went up to accompany the band on a musical saw for their song, “A Soldier’s Tale.” David also accompanied Damon at a Syd Barrett tribute show, and had Damon feature at a live event he organized called “Plague Songs.” The two grew so close that they ended up backing Damon’s daughter, Missy Albarn, billed as “Damon & David” (Missy played the harp, Damon & David played guitar and ukulele). Their relationship is what lead to David Coulter sitting in on some sessions for “Plastic Beach.”
Similar to what Damon did with Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Damon would bounce ideas off of David Coulter. One story David recalls is Damon asking him to play a melody that Damon had been humming in his head for days on a set of giant bells. This melody later became the main synth riff to stand out track, “On Melancholy Hill.” Without David Coulter, we would not have yet another amazing track, “Some Kind Of Nature.” Damon specifically wrote that track with Lou Reed in mind to sing it, and having worked with Lou before, David decided to shoot him an email. According to David, “he replied immediately.”
David’s most famous contribution to “Plastic Beach” however is on the grand finale, “Pirate Jet.” He does the opening line on his beloved Jew’s Harp. While at the time the was playing to the track, the song slowly became based around his sinister almost robotic cries of ”pirate jet” making him almost a pseudo feature on the song. He was thrilled to have heard his jew’s harp playing being blasted over the intercoms of Glastonbury during Gorillaz headlining set, watching it from his English home.
David hasn’t spoken to Damon in a while, but he still keeps up with what he’s doing (he thinks the new Gorillaz track “Momentary Bliss” is amazing and that The Good, The Bad & The Queen’s album “Merrie Land” is the best thing Damon has ever done). They are both busy busy men, David Coulter is currently working on not only theater productions, but also with Iranian singer Mina Momeni and is trying to get her music out there to a safer world. In Iran, music is often censored or silence, meaning a fight for “music freedom” along with many other freedoms, is an ongoing and worthy battle to fight. They released a song together called “The Wall of Fear (The Drak Room)” which I think is brilliant and a must listen for all Gorillaz fans.
David Coulter is a very private man. He rarely does interviews, especially about other people’s work, and the fact that I got a chance to talk to him means the world to me. It was a conversation I will never forget. Without David Coulter, Damon’s music in “Monkey” and “Plastic Beach” would not be as interesting or groundbreaking as it is.
