Tim Sharp: Radio Presenter & Co-Founder, Botanic Records
BFM.MY, www.botanicrecords.com
Tell us a bit about yourself? I’m originally from New Zealand, grew up mostly in Australia (both countries are ‘home’) and have spent the last five years in Southeast Asia.
Outside of my day job, I’ve presented a weekly new music radio program for the last eight or nine years - including Into the Blue on BFM 89.9 since 2014.
Another current project is Botanic Records: an independent record label I run with Zulamran Hilmi dedicated to championing and cultivating new music from around the region, and which we launched in 2016.
How did you first get into radio? There’s a phenomenal community radio station in Sydney called FBi 94.5. After a couple of unsuccessful applications I started volunteering as a breakfast radio producer and was really just thrilled to be there doing anything at all. Eventually I began hosting the infamous ‘graveyard’ shifts from 1-6am, drank a lot of Red Bull and then one day received a call asking if I’d like to take on The Bridge – FBi’s longstanding Sydney music program - which I then hosted twice a week for the next few years.
FBi is an amazing station with a mandate to play 50% local music and I loved every minute of it. When I moved from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur I was determined to keep a foot in radio and eventually the dial landed on BFM 89.9, which is itself an inspiring current affairs-based station operating in a very different socio-political climate but with strong local ties and a desire to move Malaysia forward. As great radio should.
Independent radio can also be a vital contributor to a city’s cultural pulse and so I pitched an hourly music program focused on putting local talent on the same stage as cutting-edge new music from the rest of the globe. That became Into the Blue and several timeslots later is these days a two-hour weekly show running on Saturday nights. We’ve welcomed some major guests (including the likes of Thundercat, Tycho and Philip Selway of Radiohead) but the end-game is still to support new Malaysian and regional music as much as possible.
Every minute on radio is a responsibility and using these platforms to support independent musicians is one of the most meaningful things an FM station can do. There’s enough Top 40 out there!
What is the purpose of your studio? It’s funny because it’s quite literally a studio apartment. The essential task was to house my record collection and to create a space to record from when I couldn’t get to a radio station in person. The key parts to it are modular; things plug in and out and I can scale the setup right down into a backpack if I need to record an interview or a show on the road.
How does your studio reflect your personality? One of my favourite concepts is the idea of a feedback loop where learnings and experience from one project inform the next and so on until you are able to balance multiple jobs or roles in a relatively natural way. Which I think is something you’d hope to see anywhere you need to work, live and play in the same space.
Because space is a luxury, there are certain layout decisions that create a sort of puzzle where everything does seem to fit together in that feedback loop sort of way. For example; I will often write a report for my day job while auditioning music for the radio show in the background, or try and practice an idea for a DJ set as a sort of study break from the depths of a spreadsheet. I can’t quite make a cup of coffee from the turntables, but it’s pretty tight!
Are there things you don’t allow in your studio/space in order to be more productive? Over time I’d hope to learn to own less ‘things’, which does seem odd when you’re lugging something like a record collection around. But space is at a premium, for sure, and so new additions to the studio do stand out if they don’t have some sort of utility.
What is your favourite music to work to? I’m always reviewing the next week’s radio show and try not to feature individual tracks more than once, so there’s a lot to get through each week to program two hours of new music.
One quirk of the space is that there’s usually music playing, but rarely from the same source. At the moment I’m really loving Mary Lattimore’s new album on cassette tape (‘Hundreds of Days’ via Ghostly International), Jimi Tenor’s new LP on vinyl (‘Order of Nothingness’ via Philophon Recordings) and a long Bandcamp Wishlist streaming through my phone. There’s a Jamaican dub poet Nazamba with a new release on there and I'm also enjoying the new Seven Davis Jr EP. It’s all happening.
What’s your favourite area/item in your studio and why? My turntables: a pair of 1997 (approx) Technics SL-1200MK2 which I bought second hand from a Malaysian wedding DJ who’d had them spray-painted white at a car body shop. Eventually he'd hung up the headphones and parked them in his dad’s basement for what seems to have been a long time. They're being put to good use again now, but recounting the whole process of finding, dusting them off and now the odd DIY repair makes me chuckle everytime.
What’s your view on Malaysia’s creative scene? Malaysia has incredible creative talent across a stack of industries from design to music to film and beyond. I think we can improve on connecting the dots and forming communities instead of waiting for recognition or some sort of taste-making approval to keep pushing boundaries or innovating. Which is a trap we all sometimes seem to fall into.
All the ingredients are here to set innovative, creative agendas; but it would be such a shame if we don’t connect the dots. Whether you’re making music in a bedroom in PJ, painting out of a garage in Ipoh or shooting photography in JB, there’s literally nothing to lose by sending an email, or reaching out to someone doing something inspiring. Personally, I’m really excited about the next few years of creativity in Malaysia.
What’s next? We have one more release on Botanic Records for 2018, which I’m very excited about. I’m also working on something exciting in radioland. Watch this space!
Hear more from Tim here:
Into the Blue airs Saturday nights 9-11pm on BFM 89.9 Kuala Lumpur or online at BFM.MY.
Weekly podcasts are available on the BFM website and app.
https://www.bfm.my/podcast.html?qseaid=&pseaid=17778&iseaid=all&dsseaid=&deseaid=&tag=&prg=