Formed in 1998 following a spirited barroom discussion in a over the merits of digital versus analog recording, Seattle band Kinski have spent the past 11 years perfecting their textural, expansive post-rock.
Kinski’s musical output has long been characterized by its experimental underpinnings. Their first album, 1999’s Space Launch for Frenchie, showcased the band’s ability to deftly combine influences ranging from Spacemen 3 to Stereolab. With echoes of shoegaze and krautrock standbys like Can informing both their recordings and increasingly improvisational live sets, Kinski connected with Japanese band Mainliner and opened for them on a series of U.S. tour dates.
This tour allowed them to form an ongoing collaborative relationship with Kawabata Makoto—the renowned experimental musician best known as the founder of the Japanese psychedelic band Acid Mothers Temple. This relationship led Kinski back to Japan, where they toured multiple times with Acid Mothers Temple and eventually released a split release with the band in 2003.
“We’ll have known Kawabata from Acid Mothers for 10 years this summer,” says Chris Martin, songwriter and guitarist for Kinski. “To celebrate, we’re going to tour Japan with them this summer for two weeks.”
Martin notes that although the bands are somewhat different stylistically, their tendency to improvise makes them a good fit.
“The split we did with Acid Mothers Temple started from a jam we did with them when we were in Japan years ago, at a band member’s house,” Martin says.
Live sets have likewise included jams and collaborations, although Martin notes that Kinski’s new material has significantly changed the band’s live shows.
“Kinski’s new material, that we’ll be doing at this show, is more concise,” Martin says. “And all the songs have vocals. It’s really different for us. Kawabata always told me I should sing more but I’ve never wanted to. But now, the songs I’m writing need vocals and I feel like I have a bit to say lyrically.”
2007 saw the release of Kinski’s seventh album, Down Below Its Chaos, which features the tighter songwriting that Martin references in interviews. The band also toured with Tool. On that tour, they stuck to their old instrumental standbys.
“At the Tool shows, we sort of did our greatest hits set, because we only had a half hour,” says Martin. “We weren’t experimenting much. But by the end of the month, we were starting to figure out how to improv in front of 19,000 people! We were starting to screw around more and it was getting to be really fun.”
As far as their current tour with Acid Mothers Temple, Martin suggests that Kinski will be playing the newer, more conventional material.
“We used to improvise a lot,” he says. “But right now we’re working on these tighter songs that we don’t know very well. But it depends on the night. Sometimes we stretch out and see what happens … it depends on how much whiskey we drink.”
Despite their relatively close residence, this will be one of Kinski’s first few performances in the Rose City.
“We are only able to tour a month or two out of the year so we try a lot of stuff out on audiences in Seattle,” Martin says. “We hadn’t played Portland much in the past because the audiences had been lame and it just wasn’t any fun. But we played there a few months ago and it was great!”
The group hopes to continue this trend with their show at the Holocene where they, along with Acid Mothers Temple, will give Portland another chance to show that it can get groovy on the dance floor.