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​KiNK: "There shouldn’t be a formula to playing live"

The king of electronic improvisation shares his thoughts on live sets

Masterful electronic artist KiNK has one of the most acclaimed live sets in dance music, which focuses on showcasing his unique improvisational skills. With that, it’s no surprise he says "there shouldn’t be a formula to playing live".

In an interview with Electronic Beats, the Bulgarian producer opened up about his thoughts on live electronic performances and shared advice for those looking to develop their own set. When building his own live set, KiNK says it’s constantly evolving:

“The way I see it, there shouldn’t be a formula to playing live. The KiNK show is something stable that changes slowly with time. Once in awhile I get bored, so I do projects like my new techno project Cyrillic. The idea behind it was that I wanted to play live with standard DJ equipment. I use three CDJs to play loops of very basic recordings from my modular synthesizer: just basslines and simple melodies. The beats come from the Roland TR-8 drum machine. Everything is synced by ear, so it’s a bit demanding in terms of performance.”

The innovative musician later touched on adding new elements to his setup, advice on how to "keep it simple", using gear that allows for more of a jam session than just a general live set and how Tim Exile inspires him to improvise.

Read the full interview with KiNK here

For more on KiNK, check out his home studio which is filled with high-tech wizardry.

Harrison is Mixmag's East Coast Editor. Follow him on Twitter here