This exclusive Music Mondays article takes you behind the eyes of Kai Whiston and their undeniable energy that reaches far beyond music. Take a dive into this underground creative's mindset as well as their story that got them where they are today.

8/19/22

Growing up in a subculture can be disorienting. As we leave our home nest and travel into the world, the dissonance between our perception of the world and the way everyone else sees it creates conflict and confusion. Communicating the way we see the world is an integral part of creating, and when artists create and communicate their perspective, we can elevate our understanding of empathy. Kai Whiston is battling with his own dissonance from what we’ve seen in his new material so far. 

Kai’s mother was a member of a movement in the UK known as ‘new age’ travelers. Far from an expert on the movement, I have gleaned that they were a group of modern day nomads who built up a subculture believing in ideals of free living, activism and music. The story as told in the press surrounding this album is that Kai’s mother designed posters for 90s bands in the trance, breakbeat, and hardcore electronic music communities. There is a piece of reporting that is especially evocative of Kai’s upbringing, 

“We didn’t have any gas or money, and I was boiling baby bottles on a fire in the rain. I just thought I can’t do this to you. I wanted you to have a better start, because that’s when it started going wrong… I was right babe, wasn’t I, to get us out of there.”

Kai has quite literally traveled from nomadic upbringings to the brink of breaking his unique take on music into the mainstream, and he took the long way to get there. Despite Britain's entrenched class structure, he’s managed to gracefully rise above by telling and sharing his unique story and sound. I’ve been following his story for some time now, and from what I understand, he grew up in Bristol, where he and Iglooghost became Facebook friends through a mutual connection between Iglooghost and his younger brother. They bonded over a shared love for experimental music, and around the time they went to university, the two began making music together. 

Fans will know that Iglooghost used to distribute and help promote Kai’s music on his GLOO label, and they collaborated on the Lux album alongside BABii, which from what I remember was a Top 10 electronic album that year worldwide and was made in their flat. Kai has since embarked on a massive knowledge sharing project, Lux Cache. This has been a hidden gem for producers, with artists such as umru, OPN, and Jimmy Edgar breaking down their tracks. KAVARI and sv_1 have shared their production tools as well as countless artists unveiling their production process. Overall, Lux Cache has been a hidden gem for artists and producers who have heard about it, and I have absolutely no gripes with co-signing it, it is well worth the money.