Oliver Coates Can't Escape the Cello

a.k.a. An interview with the UK artist and composer about his new album, his forays into film scoring, the legacy of classical music and his complicated relationship with his chosen instrument.

Even if you don’t know the name Oliver Coates, or think you’re not familiar with his work, you’ve almost certainly heard him—or, more specifically, his cello—at some point during the past decade or so. Aside from his own records, not to mention Remain Calm, his collaborative LP with Mica Levi that came out back in 2016, the native Londoner—and former star pupil at the Royal Academy of Music—has gradually found his way into the film world. Levi had something to do with that as well, recruiting Coates to perform on her landmark score for 2013’s Under the Skin. Jonny Greenwood has been another major supporter, as the two formed a working relationship after the Radiohead guitarist enlisted the London Contemporary Orchestra—where Coates was once the principal cellist—to perform on the soundtracks of films like The Master, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread.

In recent years, however, Coates has increasingly started doing scores of his own, crafting the striking music for acclaimed films like Aftersun and The Stranger, both of which arrived in 2022. Other film and television projects have followed, including the soundtrack for director Steve McQueen’s 2023 documentary Occupied City, and Coates has also shown up in the fashion world, composing music for extravagant runway shows by Dior and Chanel. All the while, the requests for Coates to play on other people’s records have also piled up, and a quick scroll through his resume turns up credits on albums by Malibu, Arca, Laurel Halo, Radiohead and even Taylor Swift.

But where does Coates own music fit in? Though he’s released multiple albums over the years (and picked up plenty of accolades in the process), the last one, skins n slime, quietly dropped amidst the pandemic fog of 2020. Coates has obviously been busy since then—aside from making music, he’s also a father to two young children—and with the litany of people clamoring for his services, some might argue that there’s no pressing need for him to take his cello and dive back into the relatively niche world of avant-garde composition and experimental electronic music. Yet he’s done just that, and has a new full-length, Throb, shiver, arrow of time, arriving next month via RVNG Intl. (The most recent single, “Apparition,” which features Malibu, even has an accompanying video by Aftersun director Charlotte Wells.)

With the new album on the horizon, I jumped at the chance to talk to Coates, who hasn’t spoken much to the press during the past few years. He made clear that wasn’t intentional when we connected last week, and during the course of our conversation, we talked at length about the new record and his growing catalog of film and television scores. Along the way, Coates also touched upon the pleasures and challenges of commissioned work, and how his creative outlook changes when he’s working on projects that fundamentally aren’t his own. And, of course, we also spoke about the cello, an instrument he first picked up as a child and subsequently spent decades learning in the most formal of settings. It’s still at the center of his practice now, and as much as Coates’ life has changed, he freely admits that when it comes to music, some things remain very much the same—even when he’s actively tried to scoot in the opposite direction.