On April 22nd, MK will release his first ever commercially available mix compilation; news that will come to a surprise to many when you consider just how influential he has been on the world of electronic music over the last two decades.
Ahead of the release of MK In The House, Kristan J Caryl sat down with the Detroit producer for a chat about the politics of working with pop megastars, his new live band Pleasure State and finding his musical soul mates.
MK (Marc Kinchen) is a happy guy, and not just because “it’s a nice, sunny hot day” in his hometown of LA. Instead, it’s because he is once again making the music he enjoys, free from the restraints of commercial mainstream where he has spent a chunk of his career producing for many R&B/pop notables, and remixing, everyone from Celine Dion to Pet Shop Boys.
“It’s a lot of fun producing that stuff,” he admits, "but it’s not as much fun or as glammy as you might think it is. It can be very political. You don’t have the same type of freedom on those pop projects as you do when you are doing your own thing or doing some really cool underground track. What is music to me and you is a serious business to the mainstream labels.
"Sometimes, a project would become so political and there would be infighting with the label, the artists, the other writers, the manager and I got caught in the crossfire a couple of times. I would think, 'wait a minute what does this have to do with making music?' Even when I was working with Pitbull, who is an absolutely great guy, in my own studio, there were so many chefs with their own opinions on the outside that it could ruin a project.. It’s so stressful to be neutral and calm in those situations since in the end you are the one who has to fix it when people don’t like a song, I can do it, but honestly, I like doing this way better.”
‘This’ being a modern antecedent of the MK dubby house sound, the man born Marc Kinchen almost single-handedly pioneered back in the early 90s. His releases from that era like “Burning” and “Always” and his alias The Fourth Measuremen , and the Nightcrawlers are still ubiquitous. In fact, they are more than that – in the last year or so, along with the oft-referenced work of Kerri Chandler, they have served more as house blueprints, copied ad nauseam by young producers of the day.
“It’s cool, of course I love it” says Marc when questioned on revivalism. “But sometimes I hear stuff and understand what people are trying to do, but they might not know how to do it. A lot of it, to me, the 90s sound, you just need a 909 bassline and you’ve got it!” That’s overly reductive; of course, MK’s own career is not built on one bassline but more than 200 remixes and countless other production credits including the Men in Black 3 theme song. Importantly, his return to the scene has not been built purely on nostalgia; he is adding to the contemporary house conversation as readily as anyone. That he is back involved in the underground house world at all, is largely due to his loyal old friend and lifetime supporter, who also happens to own the most respected and influential house label out of the UK.
This longtime friend is of course, Defected Boss, Simon Dunmore. Simon reached out to me a couple of years ago, when I wasn’t doing any dance music at all. He wanted to release my back catalogue and I was like, “cool”.” That resulted in the release of 2011’s House Masters, 2 discs that bulged with timeless MK dubs and more than whet the appetite of a new generation of fans. “Defected are like family, you know, so I am always open to whatever they want to do.
After the great reception to the House Masters MK compilation in 2011, it’s no surprise the label and MK were up to do something more,. A contribution to the popular In the House mix series seemed like an inspired idea, Even the timing is perfect, since the truth is that out of all the people that go to see MK play out, few will have been exposed to the wealth of music that his legacy is built on. The people that go to MK sets everywhere from Watergate Berlin to Smart Bar Chicago to Pacha Ibiza will now have access to his classics that have never been available on one album ever before.
“Actually, I’ve only been playing out properly for about 18 months so it took some getting used to. I had spent most of my career in the studio. So now that I am djing, I use Traktor, and if you don’t use vinyl, DJing is not hard as long as you can feel the crowd and the flow.. I think that the hardest part about DJing is knowing all sorts of music, and since, I mainly play all my own songs, it’s pretty seamless.
The upcoming In the House, showcases a selection of records chosen with no requirement other than “I liked them!” MK admits a healthy proportion are his and the rest “are a mixture of old and new.” Rather than aiming for different vibes on each of the two discs, the Detroit DJ/producer recorded one long session that will simply be split in two. “A lot of my DJ friends, I thought they did their mixes and podcasts live, but a lot of them use Ableton. So this was the first time I did it that way and it was pretty cool for me.”
It is fair to say, those ‘DJ friends’ now include Hot Creations bosses Jamie Jones and Lee Foss, with whom MK has formed a great kinship since his re-emergence. It started when the pair asked Marc to DJ at their Miami party in 2010 (before knowing it was something he’d rarely done) and then for a remix of Hot Natured’s “Forward Motion”. The results were a perfect coming together of the two camps – pristine production, a popping bassline and plenty of late night neon hues. There is just something about us when we are in the studio together, we are different but we blend…..it’s been like finding my musical soul mates.
Since then there have been a number of mutual collaborations, including one with vocalist Anabel Englund on the Electricity EP. Having already been impressed with Anabel after seeing her “singing as a guy DJed before me in LA, I remember thinking “wow”,” the threesome is now working together more permanently as Pleasure State. It’s a “proper group” with a full live tour coming soon and a first album already in the works.
“My thing is I’m big on singers. Even when I did the Nightcrawlers record [“Push the Feeling” a definitive dub from 1992] with John Reed, he has a really nice voice. You can chop his vocals and anything you use sounds good, and it’s the same with Annabel. I’m excited about it, I think it’ll be one of the best projects I’ve had out in in all my years of producing.”
MK In The House is out 22nd April – pre-order from iTunes
