KIX Mix with Ian Handsley
Beer, swimming, humanism and academia aside, I like 2 ideas in electronic music: Swing and bounce in tech house, and ambient (whatever that is). The funky house I’ve heard lately seems um…well, especially funky. There are live sounds coming into it, and the emphasis is on fun, groove and cheekiness. While this isn’t especially new, stripping housey tracks back to a more minimal composition and swinging the shit out of the loops is. To me it is, anyway, especially when techno-geek Germans do it.
The ambient I like is probably not ambient at all, but rather termed ‘post techno’ or something equally ridiculous. Either way, the idea is to maintain the ambient aesthetic while including elements of other styles, many of which have had nothing to with electronica. Two names that come to mind here are Jesse Somfay and Eluvium, both of whom deserve the Nobel Prize for making me meaningful.
Tech house and ambient don’t really sound good together, so rest assured that I won’t mix them up. But KIX Mix will either be funky or deep, the former representing what I play in clubs here in Osaka, the latter being my soundtrack for unbearably beautiful things.
There’s more on our blog : )
