Even with no official release to her name, NON Worldwide co-founder Nkisi has already kinda been, well, “killing” it for the past few years. Along with ANGEL-HO and Chino Amobi, she helped launch NON with a triptych of riveting singles (“STOMP,” “Et Pourtant Elle Tourne,” and “Noir”) and has since performed prolifically as part of NON’s spectacular showcases, most recently in Berlin at CTM Festival 2017. Her DJ sets and production work are dive-bombing, high-BPM, and viciously polyrhythmic trials-by-fire, sometimes incorporating her own voice, singing or intoning lyric loops and fragments of poetry.
But even if all activity makes it seem like a foregone conclusion, the announcement of her debut physical-format EP, Kill — which is coming March 27 by way of Rush Hour’s freshly minted MW imprint — still feels like a kinda BIG DEAL.
The four-song affair runs a gamut of international club music styles, “from afro-centric rhythms to influences of Gabber and dark Belgian techno,” all of which are usually presents in her DJ sets. Her own sound is certainly not of any one of them, though, as the lead-single and EP-closer “Parched Lips” pays testament. Beginning in the guise of a militant acid stepper, it builds to something utterly aflight.
Check out samples of all four tracks and pre-order here. It’s a vinyl-only edition of 100.
And for more on Nkisi, check out the two lengthy pay-what-you-want releases she did for German label Doomcore, 16 and 21, and read Truants’s transcription of a panel-discussion she gave with ANGEL-HO and NON-associate Rabit, called “Decolonised Dancefloors: Race, Identity & The Global Underground.” Her ongoing monthly radio show on NTS is also archived here.
Kill EP tracklisting:
01. Kill
02. Can you See Me
03. Mwana
04. Parched Lips
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