Live Review: Mount Kimbie Rip Up The Radio Rule Book

Peckham DJ duo MOUNT KIMBIE have proven over the last month that they still have their fingers very much on the pulse, with their mid-afternoon Tuesday takeover of London’s NTS radio station.

Release dates, radio schedules, confidentiality, waiting until the label gives the go ahead? Not for Mount Kimbie. The pair has used their slot on the online station to showcase bootlegged new tracks, previously unreleased exclusives and unheard samples. Now into the third episode of their excellently eclectic month-long residency, last week’s episode saw the boys, aka Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, hanging out with old mate King Krule (remember their arresting ‘You Took Your Time’ collaboration?), air a pair of newbies from West Coast rapper Jon Wayne and host an intimate performance from Sydney’s very own Alex Cameron who is currently touring in the Northern Hemisphere and popped into the studio with his usual montage of wry observations and atmospheric live performances.

In a cheeky end-of-show move, Mount Kimbie debuted Jamie Woon’s soon-to-be-released track, ‘Forgiven’. Unfortunately, there’s no links anywhere to Woon’s track yet, but don’t fear because we’ve got something just as good. Taken from the guys’ first NTS show a few weeks back, here’s a previously unreleased track that the duo put together way back in 2009 with electronica maestro, James Blake:

The untitled track was created as part of a fruitful jam session, prior to the release of both Blake’s debut album and Kimbie’s own Crooks & Lovers LP, two seminal pieces of work in the development of house and electronic music as we know it today.

The untitled, unreleased and unfinished collaboration is everything you would imagine a collab between two low-fi minimal electronic acts would be. Quiet, unassuming, clicky and frolicsome with muffled distorted vocals creeping in and out over a steady snare beat. We’re still waiting for Blake’s album later this year, but there's been murmurings about a new track called 'Radio Silence' which he's been playing at a few live shows.

Last week the duo dug into their own vaults to discover an unreleased song, known simply as ‘Bells_5’. It was created as a possible entry onto their 2013 Cold Spring Fault Less Youth album, but never made the final cut. They announced on the radio that they’d been searching for old stuff they’d created with Archy (aka King Krule) and instead stumbled across some of their own early work, in the shape of the ‘Bells_5’ track. I wonder what Bells 1 to 4 sounded like. ‘Bells_5’ in any case features various bells, some might say a lot of bells, as well as a lovely rattling shaky maraca thing and some swooshing synthy gyrations. It’s a smooth dance floor number, have a groove:

Over the course of their NTS slot, Conan Mockasin, William Basinksi, Micachu, James Holden, Midland and James Blake have also all made appearances. Station founder Femi Adeyemi was incremental in the early days of the Boiler Room set up, and his choice to give Mount Kimbie a residency is just one example of the varied curation that frames the station’s ethos. This is the great thing about getting great DJs onto radio shows – you get great radio shows. Simples.

Interestingly enough, in the interest of self-interest, we had some very interesting guests on the always-interesting Purple Sneakers FBi Click radio show this month, namely Bodhi, Crookers, Polographia and Aeroplane. Go and have a listen here!

Words by Katie Rowley

LISTEN TO MORE MUSIC HERE

SEE ALSO:

AEROPLANE GUEST MIX FOR PURPLE SNEAKERS ON FBi CLICK

BODHI GUEST MIX FOR PURPLE SNEAKERS ON FBi CLICK