“he’s this lil 16 yr ol lad called kai who comes from the same tiny shitty town as me & hangs out w my little brother. i don’t ever rlly do this w ppl’s music but i honestly believe in this dude.”
The above is a Facebook message we received in March 2016 from an artist we’ve worked with in the past. The Kai in question is Kai Whiston, a young British producer who has since debuted with the Houndstooth EP on Los Angeles’ TAR label and captivated critics and fans with a clattering, grime-adjacent production aesthetic. By the end of 2016, Whiston was marked as an up-and-comer in the world of Internet dance music, partially due to his age (he’s now 17), but mostly due to the genuinely striking nature of his debut and the radio appearances that followed, most recently his own Atrophy FM show on Radar Radio. Utilizing everything from familiar grime vocals to the sort of noisy sound design favored by labels like PAN, The Death of Rave and Editions Mego, Whiston essentially jumped out of the gate with a fully formed vision and the mix and radio appearances have only solidified those credentials, painting a map of influences and contemporaries that range from Sega Bodega and Food Man to John Cage, Nathan Fake and Death Grips. Whiston brings an eclecticism that not only comes across as genuine, but is also distinctly strange, a cataclysmic mixture that defies expectation from moment to moment.
Its that quality that consistently draws responses like the one above and with a forthcoming release on a larger label on the way there’s a good chance Whiston’s music will incite similar responses in a much wider audience. In the meantime, there are two TAR releases to delve into and the aforementioned radio appearances, all must listens in our book. We grabbed Whiston for Astral Plane mix 143 and he delivered us a delirious, genre-averse blend of avant-garde classical experiments, mosh-y punk and gorgeous contemporary beat work. It’s mostly devoid of Whiston’s own work, but his eclectic production approach abounds and it’s not difficult to see the threads he might be grabbing at on future releases.
The Astral Plane 