Kiche
Kiche is 24 year old Brussels-based electronic producer Ismaël Iken.
The music of Kiche is a beautiful focus on the playful and fun character of internet culture.
“The border between danceable and undanceable fascinates me the most”
While preparing for this interview, I could not find any other interview with you, so you should start by telling me a bit about yourself: what’s your name? How old are you?
Ismaël Iken: I’m Ismaël, 24 years old.
Where are you from?
I grew up in the North of Belgium.
Where do you live?
I am now living in Brussels.
Are you a student or do you work?
Last summer, I finished my photography studies. Now I’m studying to become a teacher in the visual arts.
Some questions about music: when did you start making music? Why did you start making music? Why did you choose electronic music?
As a kid, I was always interested in rhythmic things like beatboxing and table drumming. But I think I was 18 or 19 when Cas, a good friend of mine, showed me Ableton. We began making beats together, as we were both interested in hip-hop at the time – artists like Madlib, MF DOOM, Earl Sweatshirt, but also more electronic acts like JPEGMAFIA, Death Grips… We also wrote our raps, and we even had some gigs in living rooms and bars. We tried to release five songs, but we never really got to finish the tracks. This was 2019 – 2020. Meanwhile I was making some more electronic stuff on my own. With my interest in rhythm, I was drawn to making danceable stuff. There’s something about the functionality of club music that makes the process a bit easier – or at least clearer in terms of purpose. The border between danceable and undanceable fascinates me the most.
Your oldest release I could find is from 2020. Is it around this time you started making music?
During the first lockdown, I tried to make a track every day. Sometimes very poorly mixed, but that didn’t matter. Just one export every day. I began collecting and listing the tracks that I liked the most, or that sounded homogenous in a tracklist. So in that COVID summer, I worked on these tracks and released my first project – I guess a mixtape – called ‘Palloncini’.
Who do you see as your music influences? I hear 90s WARP: Plaid and Clark, mainly, but also obvious ones like Boards Of Canada, Autechre and Aphex Twin.
Yes, for sure there are some WARP artists that I listen to a lot, like Squarepusher, Aphex Twin and especially Autechre last year. Naming influences are like a thank-you speech. Once you start to name people, you forget a lot of others. But I’m thinking of glitch/computer music artists like Oval, Mark Fell and Jan Jelinek.
Recent names?
If I have to give more recent names: aya, James Ferraro, Rian Treanor, Elvin Brandhi. At the same time I can be inspired by a Ryan Trecartin film, or a specific street corner in Brussels.
In 2021, I started producing for senna JMB – Johan, also a good friend of mine. It’s a blend of cloud rap, post punk, and IDM (kind of?). I think producing in this way influenced me to think more about song structure, using chords, melodies…
You’re based in Brussels. Are you part of a “Brussels scene”? Are you part of a scene based around the Montage label? Is a release on Montage one of your future plans?
My new EP called ‘Ceremony’ is being released on MONTAGE. Jonathan (one of the label heads) liked my last EP ‘Frogs Sailing, Moon Is Disk,’ so we grabbed a drink and I sent some demos. The majority of these five tracks are actually older than the ‘Frogs’ EP songs. I think the oldest “sketch” is ‘Wedding Dance’, it’s almost three years old. But to me they still feel rather new because I finalized and reworked them some months ago.
Can you tell me how the working process went for this new EP?
I don’t think I’ve ever had such a long process for a specific project. The process definitely wasn’t as intense the whole time – sometimes there were months that I didn’t work on any of the tracks. But I’m excited I can share them now via MONTAGE, as I feel like they have a very decent platform.
I read somewhere: the music of Kiche is “a beautiful focus on the playful and fun character of internet culture”. Would you agree with that?
Yup. With my previous release, the ‘Frogs’ EP, I wanted to make something else than my release before that (‘Neerstorting’). I kind of challenged myself to compose more conventional pieces, with a focus on melody and chords instead of beats and samples. In that process, a tendency towards sweet and childlike synth sounds and ear-candy drums grew. The tracks on ‘Ceremony’ are a blend of these aspects, pushed by clubby pulses.
For me – and other people of my age I suppose – it is impossible to not be influenced by the internet. I’m specifically drawn to phenomena like shitposting and meme culture overall. I also like to record Instagram stories and sample them from time to time.
Where does the name “Kiche” come from?
The name Kiche doesn’t bear a specific meaning to me. When I wanted to release my first project in 2020, I wanted a name that was more like a sound. One syllable. Ksh. Keesh. Later I realised some people pronounce it differently. Key-khe. Kitche. I grew to really like that aspect, because everyone pronounces my own name differently too: eesmayel. sma-il. izmayel. eesmel.
Joeri Bruyninckx
Kiche will perform at Nightlifeit Takes A City Festival, Brussels | Tickets
Headline photo: Marie Terlaeken
Kiche Website / Instagram / / Bandcamp
