BT) So first of all, thank you so much for taking the time to do this! What brought you and Boomtown together?
K) Mine and the label’s history with Boomtown goes back to last year. I played alongside two other acts from the label Foreign Concept and Enei as Critical Sound System, which is label back to back special and played on
the Bassline circus stage and it was incredible and then we were asked do something back bigger and better at this year’s one.
BT) What made you want to come back to Boomtown?
K) Well I was very lucky to play a lot of festivals last year and it was hands down one of the best ones we played, it was the best one we played in the UK, it was an amazing atmosphere. There’s really an element of, if you play underground music and you go to festivals you can sometimes find yourself getting a bit lost because being underground, it’s niche and there’s only a certain amount of people how know what you do and who you are and it was definitely a crowd who knew who we were and knew our music. I think we played to 4,000 people over 2 hours and we could take the set wherever we wanted to take it. Really deep stuff that you might not get away with at other festivals, and it was really good fun. We played from 4~6am which can be the best time or a really hard time to play and it worked out really well.
BT) Last year you played at the Bassline Circus and this year you’re playing at Bang Hai but you’ve been extended from a four-hour takeover to a whole day takeover. How are you feeling about that?
K) Yeah it’s amazing! I mean I saw what the stage looked like last year and thought… I want to play on that (laughs) and then we get to asked to do it and thought, brilliant! And then we got to play the whole stage on the Saturday… Wow. It’s a real honour, it’s really exciting, all the guys are really hyped to be playing as well because they’ve seen all the videos of what it’s like and the Noisia guys played on there last year. We all know them and they said how good it was, so yeah it’s a big deal! There’s going to be a lot of Instagram pictures I’m sure!
BT) You mentioned Critical artists are excited to be playing; what can you tell me about who’s going to be there and what can be expected at the takeover?
K) Well I suppose it’s going to go across who’s playing starting from Klax and Hyroglifics who are two acts who are fairly new to the label. They will be playing B2B for the first chunk of the night and they play a combination of half time hip hop and grime influenced D&B and then the more traditional D&B. An exciting fusion of new sounds.
And then we’ve got Foreign Concept who’s had a few releases on the label now and he makes more straight forward rolling stuff, goes a bit deeper and a great DJ.
We’ve got Ivy Lab and Sam Binga with Redders MCing who have a different take on the D&B format. They predominantly play half time hip hop influenced stuff. Quite a lot of vocals so that should be good and then it’s me…and I’m rubbish (laughs). I just play a bit of everything from the label because it’s my label.
And then taking it into the later stages of the night we have Enei, Emperor and Mefjus who will play a little bit harder than the rest of us. They’ll play a more tech influenced side of things but across the board.
Each of the acts from the label brings something exciting and different, their own interpretation of the music. That’s what I love, being able to do events, especially with a takeover like this, where we can programme a whole night with a curvature of the music that makes sense that is made up of purely label acts. Also having the extra times means we get to bring the whole family and everyone gets a chance to play such a special event.
BT) How is it different playing a festival and playing a night?
K) The main difference is normally we don’t do a whole takeover. It’ll
be a B2B or a solo set. There can definitely be different pressures when playing a festival, not knowing what to play or whether what you play is going to work well with the crowd but I think there’s a balance to be struck. Never play anything you don’t like but also remember there’s a fine line between trying to educate people and also remembering that people are there to have fun. That’s what I think anyway. Festivals are really good places to play in front of people that have never heard you before but if you then go and play a ‘festival set’ because that’s what you think you should play then then you are in danger of creating a false illusion of what you are as a DJ.
Coming from the underground scene, you don’t always get a look in at festivals for the most part and that’s why Boomtown is really good because it pretty much focuses on, like a festival like Outlook, on the underground side of things. .
BT) Boomtown’s known for being quite immersive and theatrical and engaging, so what is your most memorable festival experience and why?
K) One of my favourites was when I played Exit festival last year, did the main stage with Mefjus and Enei. We did 4-6am, the last set of the festival. That was really something, a real honour. From a musical point, I saw Arcade Fire at Reading Festival in 02/03 in the NME tent when when they released their first record, Funeral. It was like a rave, it was incredible.
