INTERVIEW: KILBOURNE

NEW YORK HARDCORE FOR THE HEADSTRONG

A few weeks ago, I attended Hammerhead, a party thrown by hardcore techno hero Kilbourne. It was at a loft somewhere in New York City. Through fog and piercing red lights, I watched Kilbourne play an unrelenting three hours of industrial hardcore on a DJ rig that was elevated with metal chains. Kids in tracksuits did Dutch gabber dances and the occasional mosh pit broke out. The vibe was punishing and all-encompassing. I had a nice time.

Kilbourne has been making music for a minute. I first knew of her as a Philly club producer and a member of crust and grindcore bands; for years now, she has been focusing on the other kind of hardcore, releasing a string of EPs that play with the darker permutations of the genre. Her discography is both forward-thinking and reverent, drawn from Euro and stateside influences, and grounded in nasty sound design. It always delivers the headbanger goods.

Kilbourne’s newest EP Milkshake is out now on PRSPCT Recordings, a Rotterdam powerhouse specializing in distorted kick drums. She also sings in the “ecstatic grindcore” band Trophy Hunt. Last week, we met up at a park in Bed-Stuy and, sparing no details, had an in-depth chat about both the current state of hardcore rave music and her own history within the genre.

Since you've been making hardcore for some time now, I'm curious how you've seen the scene shift post-pandemic. 

I mean, the obvious thing is just that there's a whole new generation of people that I didn't meet or at least wasn't seeing as often pre-pandemic, because they were in high school and during the pandemic no one could be anywhere. But now there is a new generation, I think there's a lot of interest in hardcore, there's more parties, there's more people attending. 

Do you think these kids are bringing in a different energy? Like, a different sensibility, musically? 

Yeah, definitely. There's a wider landscape for how fancy you want to make the party, like right now there's parties that cost potentially 40, 50 dollars to get in and there's ones that are purely free and that's part of the ethos. There's fewer expensive ones for hardcore but they do happen. And so, I think that's a big thing. I'm 31 now, I feel like on average people 10 years older than 21 have more money and that's reflected. That's also my own positionality too, it's not like all 31 year olds have disposable income. 

I think ideas about, I don't know how to put it, genre purity, there’s simultaneously a real busting wide open of what is hardcore—that expands into nightcore, J-core, happy hardcore, breakcore, the sillier sides of breakcore. Simultaneously, I've met people who are much younger than me that are freakishly into these really specific micro genres, like some of the Helltekk crew are so about industrial and free techno and speedcore from France in the ‘90s, this is such a specific style that obviously a lot of people still love but also those artists have stopped playing or passed, and yet these people have this really encyclopedic knowledge. I think that's really inspiring. 

I've been talking to some people about the state of rave in America. It seems like a lot of kids maybe had time over the pandemic to do research, look at archival materials, and now they're kind of trying to spit that back out in their own morphed way. 

Right. Yeah, I think that makes total sense. I mean, I reckon I even had a version of that myself. It was a time to dig, to think more about what music is moving me, especially when you're outside of the momentum or the runaway train of the parties going on. And it makes sense to the ethos. Something I always think about is how movies inflect your idea of what a party is, like seeing the blood rave in Blade or some of the club scenes in the Matrix trilogy, that really affects what you think partying might be like eventually. But too, there's so much on YouTube, like a lot of documentaries about free parties, for example. 

Prior to a more online context, at the time when I was 18, those weren't there, they were harder to access. Now you can, in the US—which doesn't have the same history of free party or tekno with a K—you can learn so much about that and really imbibe the vision of it. I think, too, internet-y genres are becoming more and more relevant. To me, nightcore is by definition an internet genre. Obviously there's the initial group Nightcore, but the explosion of it is based on YouTube and specific YouTube users and then eventually democratized to many people just speeding up and pitching up. 

Well, it's pop music now, too. Almost every pop song has to be sped up on streaming, in addition to the regular version. 

Yes, yes, it's true. So, that music has totally escaped the computer. Ditto breakcore—like the breakcore boom of the aughts. It's not the same, but there was a big pullback, I think, where that style for many people was too weird and, like, too much 10 people in a big empty room vibes. Now, I don't know, people have rediscovered that sound and it's really relevant to them. Some of the freakier sides of breakcore as well, like the porn-y shit or just the really tweaked out, almost verging on noise and performance art stuff. Again, I think this is a genre that was really confined to the internet for some time. 

One thing I thought was interesting about your party was that musically it was very focused, in comparison to a few other parties I've been to recently. It felt like everything was extremely cohesive. 

Yeah. I think for me, doing the Hammerhead parties is very much my specific dream version of hardcore. I like many, many sounds, but I think I've also come to terms with the fact that in some ways I'm conservative, genre-wise. It feels important to me to have some degree of respect and coherence and an understanding of genre history and the way the various sounds interact. And to not just cast those in stone and maintain them forever, to instead transgress them and make them evolve, but within the context. 

I find it frustrating seeing some sets where it goes, like nightcore to sped-up Miley Cyrus hardstyle to a random YouTube jumpstyle track. Often, it feels like something is coasting on novelty, rather than something more coherent to say about the music. And novelty is always an aspect of it—constantly you hear sounds, especially in hardcore, where you're like, That is so tweaked and cuckoo, and I can't believe I'm hearing it. But, sometimes I feel brought out of the moment by some of the more eclectic sets. 

But, it's also, you know, I was referring to breakcore as being an internet genre. So was industrial hardcore. That had itself a huge boom from the late ‘90s into even the late aughts—tens of thousands of people witnessing really freaky industrial-inflected hardcore. But now it's much smaller. There's a smaller host of parties that really focus on that sound. People either pivot to more mainstream hardcore or to dark and hard techno, which is a fine thing to do. But, it feels important to both preserve and highlight sounds that I find really compelling. 

That sort of chaos, contemporary chaos rave vibe—it's just coming from a very different place than someone who maybe has played in Europe and understands this lineage of people who have been doing it and keep doing it. I think that a lot of younger kids are probably coming at this almost ahistorically, which is what's exciting about it. But also, of course, you're gonna sacrifice an element, too. 

I have this kind of old grouch reaction. And at the same time, I'm experiencing this, I think, within the context of Europe. Sometimes people either directly complain or more to sort of point out, well, this is a different era. And that's not really fitting with this. 

If you DJ a bunch and travel around Europe, you're going to have a different outlook on how this music can be played, and what you can do with it. When I watch some of these kids DJ, it almost reminds me of a previous era of arty kids playing pop dance music in between noise sets. Just totally disregarding any sort of idea of taste in the classic techno sense. 

Totally. Well, this is how I even got into hardcore in the first place. Like, I had no idea of the delineation between hardcore and hardstyle. 

And few do, if you're outside of it—it's funny, we're gonna have this conversation, but some people reading the blog are going to be like, Okay, I need to Google all this. 

I know. I've tried to think of an analogy for this, but if you were to put someone in an empty room and leave them with, I don't know, a coin they've never seen, and that's all they've got to focus on, you come back in a year or 20 years, and they will have created all of these mythologies and delineations around this single artifact. 

There's just a certain level of doing it that is foreign to some Americans. Or maybe they're reacting to something. I look at the past decade of New York underground electronic music—seemingly the city has prized a kind of Berlin-style, very continuous, sophisticated techno environment. Maybe some of these younger ravers are trying to do a thing that will offend those people, almost. 

Totally. And that seems worthwhile because in many ways, it's such a conservative scene. And also, it's complicated, because techno is American. But at the same time, the scene really aspires to be something different and to, I don't know, always be within a system of comparison to other real or fantasized scenes in cities. That makes total sense though, that it’s a reaction. 

With my party, I have all these ideas and agendas behind it, but at the same time, musically, I believe that there's something being conveyed—there's something deeply satisfying, immersive, and psychedelic to some of the sets, like the sets that were played that night had such a unique voice of the author. For example, RABBeAT was playing only his own tracks, with the exception of one or two, Buzzi was playing an all live set. There was something so deep and beautiful about these moments. I do think that's musically different for sure. 

Even within that, you're still playing hard music that is not going to be—you're not going to hear it necessarily at every techno club in New York.

Oh, no, no one wants to hear that. I'm like, committing a micro snobbery within my…

Well, I think you're just kind of sussing out the parameters.

Yeah.

When I listen to your music, it is true that it's very focused, but within that, it seems like you are playing with genre in your own way. 

Yeah. And I don't think it's necessarily legible to both the techno crowd and the hardcore crowd here. 

Seemingly, it’s a very European strain. 

I suppose, but I think simultaneously, I'm really Interested in New York's hardcore legacy, specifically Industrial Strength, Disciples Of Annihilation, DJ Narotic.

I was gonna mention that “New York Takeover” song with DJ Narotic.

There's a rich history here, and we have like living legends still playing, for sure.

Those Melting Point parties that happened in New York, pre-pandemic. Do you think they kind of teed up what's going on now?

Oh, I think that was a really big part of exposing people to hardcore.

They would have a noise act next to an old gabber DJ, right? 

No, absolutely. Yeah, I think that was huge in presenting hardcore as in a lineage that is not separate from say, noise, or bands, even. That there's a greater unifying factor of emotional heavy music. I think, too, contextualizing it—so much of it was about raising money for immigrant advocacy groups, there’s a political immediacy to that, which is different from what can feel cold and faceless about techno. 

Yeah, and you've played in punk bands your whole life. 

Yeah.

So was that a major thread for you getting into hardcore rave music? 

Yeah, I think so. I'm sure that listening to crust and grindcore prompted my ears to enjoy the sound of hardcore techno, and just to be interested in the limits of sound and extreme sound. You know, I found mine—I don't really like noise, for example. I feel like I'm at a more professionalized moment in my dance music career, but that’s not always been the case. There's a lot of more scrappy moments within that, like playing music before this super professionalization of New York dance music. 

I think the first track I heard from you was a Meek Mill club remix that I used to DJ all the time back in the day.

Oh yeah, “Ball To The Max.” 

Do you ever think about going back and playing club records? 

I occasionally still play them within a hardcore context, especially a lot of the harder Philly club tracks and some of the darker shake-off Baltimore tracks. Something I've been focusing a lot on recently is playing with more than just two songs at once, so it's very satisfying to maybe have one or two tracks that are more within the hardcore genre realm, but then to start integrating all the vocal and percussive chopping from those genres as well. We're just fully moving towards that, too, because Philly club has a lot of people making music that was directly influenced by hardcore and hardstyle, like, you would see songs tagged as Philly hardstyle—super heavy distorted kick drum, often a super saw synth. 

Something I think about, too, with some of these younger kids: Did they find their way into this kind of hard European dance music through Dance Dance Revolution or other video games? 

I think that is definitely it for some people. For me, it felt like a lot of this first exposure was really fried YouTube from, I don’t know, ‘07, ‘08. Still that comic sans, white text on blue. I don't know what program it is. 

Yeah. 

It would just be like “Toxic (Hardstyle Mix)” and it would be just a random funny thing. I think for me, it fit with the eclecticism of anything from GHE20G0TH1K to, I don’t know, Mad Decent.

Yeah, there was a playfulness to it that made sense if you were doing a lot of genre hopping. 

Yes, definitely. 

One thing I've noticed with your music is that sound design seems extremely important. I mean, that's true for all hardcore to an extent, but it feels like you're really laboring to get these sounds to sound a particular way. 

Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I care deeply about what stuff sounds like, at the same time, I feel almost two steps behind, within the scene. The scene, especially for industrial hardcore, is so sound design focused. I think even the overall push towards loudness in dance music and music in general is built in part on some of the sensibilities of mixing and mastering that were pioneered in that genre.

So, you feel like you’re doing lo-fi shit, compared to some of these people?

Yeah, in some ways. But at the same time I still care. Yeah, I want a very particular sound and a sound to feel like something you haven't heard a million times. 

Just the kicks… I know, for the genre, kick drums are important, but it seems like you spend a lot of time on the kicks. 

Oh, definitely, I think that it is true for the genre—like, there's a very intense ethos of not sampling others' kicks, not reusing your own kicks, instead starting from scratch each time. It's kind of infuriating, because when there are no rules—obviously there are rules—but when there are fewer rules than just a slightly compressed 909 kick drum, if you have something that's so noisy, that has maybe like seven different synth layers in it, how do you make sure that it still feels good to hear and that it still works in a dancefloor context? And how do you make it feel both brick wall loud and also dynamic. 

Sometimes when I hear this kind of hardcore music, it almost makes me feel like I'm watching a trailer for a Spider-Man movie. 

Oh, yeah, very much. Even just the like, I don't know how wide its usage is now, the Kontakt Damage library, are you familiar with that? 

No. 

Kontakt is a Native Instrument’s sampler. And Damage was just really massive drums designed in a way to sound massive, like partially clipping, but still so impactful and punchy.

That's the movie trailer shit. 

That's very movie trailer shit, at least for a time. And I think even if people aren't necessarily using Damage, they're still working within that legacy. But yeah, it is really filmic to have these apocalyptic sounding drums, really horrific screeches and risers, sort of endless tension and endless edging up to something more extreme. I think that’s part of why I like it too, it is cinematic and theatrical music.

So when you play in Europe, is it different? Have you played these big hardcore festivals in Europe? 

Yeah, yeah. Like this year, I played Defqon.1, Harmony of Hardcore and Ground Zero. It's a very different context. I mean, still at these places, I'm playing the industrial hardcore stage. 

These festivals are so delineated that there's multiple stages for different sub-genres of... 

Oh yeah, absolutely. 

Yeah, that's something that most Americans couldn't wrap their brain around. That there's like six different stages of sub-genres, not just of techno, but of hardcore techno. 

Yes, yeah. Oh no, not six though. Sometimes six, but you know, sometimes 12. It's huge to the point where people are having conversations about why is this person at that stage? Many artists often will play multiple stages for the multiple valences of their sound. But yeah, that was crazy to me. I think the first time I went to Defqon.1, I was traveling and wanted to go see it. And it was—now I kind of don't question or accept it as a reality of the scene—but back then, it was really weird. I was like, Oh, there's such a choose your own adventure feeling to it. 

But yeah, it's a really different setting to play. For example, there's maybe a more widespread knowledge and historical knowledge about the genre when I'm playing over there. So, I think a lot of DJing is satisfying when it's almost conversational in the way that you give and take references. So to play certain tracks, here it might just mean that it’s a cool sounding track, but there it might mean, Remember this, isn't it funny to hear this with that? Or I don't know, even more minute things, like playing a very popular song within the scene, but then deliberately like not playing the good part or the one that everyone talks about. 

Yeah, that’s probably much, much harder to do that in America. 

Yeah, or like, you know the three people in the crowd personally who are going to be like, ha ha. 

Seeing the scale of that must have blown your mind. Just this style of music that is so niche here—to see that many people into it, it must have been insane. Did it change your ideas about what you could potentially do with your career? 

I don't even know if I saw myself fitting into that directly. Yeah. At that time, it seemed like a pipe dream to even consider being able to play one of those things. But it definitely was, I think, a psychedelic experience, to see songs that I knew just from like, I'm listening to this in my headphones as I go about my day, and then to be surrounded by 40,000 people screaming the words and then, I'm saying the words, too, but I've never had any occasion to do that aloud, besides in my car. Yeah, really freaky, really, I don't know, it's astounding. But I think it did, at the same time, it did feel like there's something gratifying too, that this wasn't just music that nobody liked. It was like, there are people who care about this. So if I keep putting my time into it, even if I didn't see myself in that music, it still felt like someone would enjoy it. And I'm not cuckoo for liking it, you know? 

So what do you have planned for the rest of the year?

Well, Hammerhead is a party, but I'm also doing it as a record label, too. So, I think wrapping up the first release, I don't know if it's gonna be December or January, we'll have to see. I'm gonna go back to Rotterdam in December and play PRSPCT XL, which is one of the largest darker industrial hardcore parties—perhaps the largest at this point—that I really enjoy playing. I’m going to Bogota to play Techsound Festival next month. 

Is there a big hardcore scene in Colombia? 

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think in the Americas, probably the biggest. I played Techsound last year and there were a couple of thousand people there. You don't see that here. Also in December, I’m collaborating with some of the people from Techsound to bring this guy, Ophidian, who's my all-time favorite hardcore artist, number one uncontested. But yeah, they're all Colombian living in New York. And yeah, Colombia has a very big hardcore scene. I feel really psyched when I get to experience some of it. It’s a different version of that Defqon.1 feeling of, like, Oh, there's other people who like this. It's just one more part of the world where this music really means something and feels pressing and immediate and powerful to people.

Milkshake is out now on PRSPCT. Kilbourne on Instagram and Twitter and Soundcloud