Mehr dazu Nkisi is an artist who occupies a sonic world that is assuredly her own. Striking a sharp balance between unhinged ’90s rave elements, haunting melodics and pan-African drum rhythms, her musical palette is the natural reflection of her identity. Now based in London, Nkisi was born in the Democratic Republic Of The Congo and raised in the city of Leuven, near Brussels, exposing her to Congolese music and Belgian hardcore and gabber. On RA.660, she sets ’90s Belgian and Dutch hardcore, techno and gabber eye to eye with her own modern take on Congolese polyrhythms with a flair that only she can pull off. This disparate combination is typical of Nkisi’s DJ sets, a style she honed playing at Endless, the London party known for its rejection of genre limitations, and now showcases on her monthly NTS radio show.

Her productions are spun from the same web of influences. Following releases on Doomcore Records, Rush Hour’s sub-label MW and Warp’s club-focussed offshoot Arcola, her debut album, 7 Directions, has just landed on Lee Gamble’s UIQ. Her music is conceptually rich, informed by everything from Bantu cosmology to psychoacoustics. In this mix, several of the modern polyrhythmic tracks from her new album are interspersed with ’90s rave tracks and even a Playstation game soundtrack, elegantly making the links between her own productions and its influences. A recording of a DJ set she played at a South London warehouse venue, Nkisi can be heard contorting tracks through mixer effects, giving RA.660 an unfiltered live energy that captures the excitement and intensity of Nkisi’s DJing.
nts.live/shows/nkisi