Name: Kitsta
Occupation: DJ, producer
Nationality: British
Recent Release: Kitsta's Liefmans EP, including a REES remix, is out via Manual Smiles.
Recommendations: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor by Shostakovich - the layers of emotion in this will never fail to make me feel.

"It’s Happenin’" by Plus One - my mum sung in this band and I remember seeing Paul Woolford play this track once. Being at a festival and hearing my mum’s voice on the speakers is not something I’ll forget! I think it also helped me connect my classical upbringing with my mum, who taught me the piano, to the music I am dancing to now.

If you enjoyed this Kitsta interview and would like to stay up to date with her music and current live dates, visit her on Instagram, and Soundcloud. Her own label Megababes is also on bandcamp.



For your own DJing, what is the balance and relative importance between what you learned from teachers, tutorials and other producers on the one hand – and what you discovered, understood, and achieved yourself? What are examples for both of these?

The fundamental concept of DJing for me was kickstarted by going to one off workshops run by amazing collectives and then investing in my own little DDJ-400 controller where I continued to teach myself.

One thing I love about DJing, and it’s something I always talk about through my work with my collective The Beatriarchy, is the connections you can make through the scene. I owe so much of my knowledge and current skills to others and from going back to back with so many other DJs. As a result, I’m very passionate about sharing knowledge back out to the community and not gatekeeping.

I recently hosted a panel with Amaliah and Frankie Wells called Behind the Decks, traversing so many topics on DJing and the surrounding spheres such as invoicing, contracts, sorting music, tech specs etc.

As much as my personal mixing style has been on a journey over the past 3 years that I have been DJing, taking inspiration from b2b partners and watching DJs on livestreams, the one common theme that has run through since the start has been harmonic mixing.

Do you think that DJing creates a new form that can take on the qualities of a composition in its own right? Is this something you strive for?

Absolutely - this is what I alluded to above. I strive for that space in between two tracks when they harmonically and melodically interlock, creating almost a new track in itself during the mix.

I have a classical background, having played the piano since I was three years old, and also being a massive music theory nerd. This background has played into my selections, my sets, and of course my own productions / compositions and means I’m drawn to harmony and melody, and how they create a groove.

When digging for music to play at your sets, what do you listen for?  

I listen for ‘moments’ and ‘groovers’ - at least these are how I sort them in my collection!

Moments are tracks that light up the dancefloor, they’re often euphoric, fun, dark and heavy, or have a big build up, and then groovers are those solid tracks I play which keep pushing my sound and where I can experiment on mixing, in between the moments.

How do you experience the concepts of "groove," and "rhythmic feel"? What is the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody?

In my sets, harmony, melody and percussion are my inputs and groove is the result.

I love mixing in key and letting beautiful melodies shine through to create euphoric moments. The groove is then what keeps dancers on the floor.

How would you describe the experience of DJing, physically and mentally?

My answer to this question completely depends on the setting. Sometimes I’ll mix on my own in the living room, practising playing records and have an absolute blast bopping around. Or maybe I’m pre-recording a radio show solo and it feels tight to squeeze it into a busy week given my intense day job.

But for the physical sets in front of a crowd, these can be so dependent on the community and the space. There’s been times where I’ve been told what to play, had people fiddle with the mixer whilst I’m mid-set, try to come behind the decks or ask to go b2b with me whilst I’m mid transition. It can really interrupt your flow and be quite demoralising as someone who has been booked to curate a vibe.

However, there've been so many amazing DJing experiences I have had which are almost addictive and leave me waiting excitedly for my next sets! Those ones remind you why you do it. The most recent sets I have done in London for Manual Smiles at The Cause and an Off The Cuff X PMAD Boat Party have been where I’ve truly felt myself. A crowd full of both friends and new faces, where I’m not afraid to look up at them, play music for them but also for myself.

Do you listen – and DJ - with your eyes open or closed?

Open always, except for on public transport, not sure I can explain why …

How does the decision making process work during a gig with regards to the inclusion of key records, the next transition and where you want the set to go? How far do you tend to plan ahead during a set?

I usually come to DJ with 1-2 options of how to open my set. Which one I choose depends on what’s been before me.

I’m not afraid to break the flow. If I think the night needs a breather, I can bring down the bpm but keep the energy. Or if the night needs to continue building, I’m happy to flow on from the previous DJ.

My choices from then on are informed by how the crowd reacts to my previous selections.

When you're DJing, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

Both - although in my head I always like to think steps ahead and keep an eye on the time. In my brain there’s almost like a tree of decisions, going through different pathways to get to a particular bpm range for the next DJ or to create a particular moment.

Sometimes I have tried and tested sequences for this, or sometimes I’ll be improvising. There’s nothing quite like the feeling when I’m mixing on the fly and I hit a new harmonically locked blend I like.

Describe how the presence of audiences/dancers influences your mixing. Do you engage with them and how? Does DJing feel like a mostly lonely endeavour or a group process to you?

At the start of my DJing journey, I found it hard to see where my sound stood in those early gigs. I found myself playing to the crowd, and loving getting those reactions and engagement. However, the tracks I was playing were not necessarily typical of the Kitsta sound, even though I was understanding how to engage a room.

Once I had established myself a bit more and understood that you can say no to some opportunities, I think I became more secure in how my sound can be adaptable, but still be my sound. That’s still definitely a journey as, don’t get me wrong, I love playing edits with my Rat Rave crew and I’ll never stop having fun with friends behind the decks.

But for my solo sets, I found the power in understanding which opportunities were right for me and how I could challenge myself to adapt to a night, but still push the Kitsta trancey agenda.

Online DJ mixes, created in the studio as a solitary event, have become ubiquitous. From your experience with the format, how does the experience and the way you DJ change when you subtract the audience?

I find that when I prepare for my online DJ mixes I tend to have an overarching idea, a particular theme or journey, or maybe even one particular track that I then curate the mix around. I challenge myself more in this setting, such as playing records, which I’m still quite new to, or try to incorporate a track that’s not necessarily directly within the spheres that I usually pull from.

A prime example being my mix for Origins Sound which was planned around the idea of an ‘encore’.

I had been to a classical concert and seen the audience applause for an encore and made the connection to myself that it’s very similar to “one more song” at the rave. I wanted to encapsulate this in a mix with a huge focus on harmonic mixing so I built all the way up, in key, to Nils Frahm - “Says” at around 1 hour 15 mins and then paused before reaching into a 15 minute ‘encore’.



[Read our Nils Frahm interview]

The rest of the build up flowed naturally and I successfully mixed a couple of my own songs in there which I was very pleased about, including one forthcoming on my EP on Manual Smiles.

Collaboration is a key part of almost every aspect of music making, but it is still rare in DJing. Do you have an idea why this is? Tell me about your own views on back-to-back DJing, interactions with live musicians or other forms of turning DJing into a more collective process.

I love playing back-to-back with other DJs - I have found my technical skills expand from watching others DJ and having to adapt my sound on the spot. You can make more connections and have fun behind the decks with friends.

I love getting to express my sound solo, but I also love developing it more alongside others.

DJing requires empathy, focus, time management, patience, and vision, among others. Are you finding that the way you play influences the way your life your life and vice versa?

I’ve always had music as a creative outlet where I like to challenge myself - from the piano, clarinet and saxophone when I was younger alongside school, to now DJing alongside my full time non-music job.

I like the balance it gives me and I believe I am focussed in both aspects, although my time management is definitely tested.

Do you feel as though DJIng is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I think the difference for me is connection. I will remember fondly a time where I cooked a meal for my family and friends and they all absolutely loved it, but I won’t necessarily distinctly remember a time where I made a coffee for myself and loved it.

I think this can be likened to DJing. I’ll remember the great b2b I did on Hor with n_o and how all our friends were proud of us for it! But I don’t remember the coffee I had that day for sure.

Let's imagine you lost all your music for one night and all there is left at the venue is a crate of records containing a random selection of music. How would you approach this set?

There’s no preparing or opportunity to curate a vibe here … so I think I’d just aim for a knees up and invite any other DJs in the audience to come and join in the challenge of mixing some records that we have no idea what they sound like!