KiNK has become one of house music’s most in demand producers and remixers: his tracks easily stand out in any club and they are second to none in the most competitive environment electronic music has seen to date. His abilities in finding the sweet spot of new machines and even of sounds already considered ‘classic’ and to reshape them into totally different beasts would be enough to justify the phenomenon. Yet this barely touches the surface of the story.
Arguably the world of dance music has not witnessed anyone else rising so clearly from bottom to top just by the centrifugal force of sheer talent. Being based in Sofia, Bulgaria, without a support network, a campaign or any media hype, his music alone – live and in the studio – created a momentum whose end we have yet to see.
Having met Neville Watson over the internet, he first gained recognition with the duo’s collaborative releases for Amsterdam’s Rush Hour label. “Inside Out” and “Full Flight” were huge records in 2008 already, but it was an unassuming video of KiNK tweaking a drum machine at home that landed him a gig at Berlin’s emblematic Panorama Bar. These encounters set him on a trail of live sets that took him to #1 on Resident Advisor’s poll – for three consecutive years. By today he has played the world several times over.
Thus KiNK’s live sets hold the key to understanding how he creates unparalleled enthusiasm on stage and through his studio output. By now, laptop ‘live’ performances have become a common sight. Yet the visual discrepancy between the dynamics of sound and the statics of a mouse click has driven most ambitious live acts to sideshow tricks: visuals, LED screens, compensatory dancing – smoke and mirrors. By contrast, KiNK’s live sets simply take the hood off, and do so strictly in terms of sound. A small set up of machines and controllers is all there is, but every knob turned produces an audible result. Often he will pass a machine to the audience and incorporate their input in real time, while cueing up an acapella on a record and tweaking a delay. All of this happens at mind-boggling speed. Hyperactive, yet holding down grooves to kill for. KiNK’s ability to nail smashing beats on the fly, well visibly and audibly, that most people couldn’t program in weeks of studio work – this ‘credibility of sound’ at the core of where it matters is what sparks the love everywhere he visits.
KiNK‘s debut album ‘Under Destruction’ was released in May 2014 on Macro.
photo by Simona Mihaylova
KiNK: under destruction 