Kid606 - Ultrahang Festival - Sept 2003

Biography of Kid606

kid606 interview by andrew cowan, b'ham post

His mum knows him as Miguel Trost-Depero, but to a growing audience of switched on audionauts, he's notorious as Kid 606. The 22 year old Venezuelan wonderkid, now based in San Francisco, is the towering figurehead of a new movement of digital musicians, gleefully stoking a bonfire of 30 years of musical history.

Kid 606 barged into the mass market with his impossible to ignore debut album Down with the Scene in the year 2000. Uncompromising and noise-driven, its mangled beats and samples were reconstituted with a healthy dose of punk rock attitude. Wilfully precocious in the arrogant way that only the very young and talented can pull off, Kid 606's been in constant demand ever since.

His remix work has been especially praised. Rather than stick some new drum loops behind the original, Kid 606 treats each commission as a collaboration, throwing new light onto the familiar and usually surpassing the source material for invention.

Kid 606's main tool is his Apple laptop and his instruments are the software he runs on it. Manipulating digital files and restructuring them alongside software modelled instruments, he is able to quickly summon up a storm of sound ranging from howling noise cut-ups to serene ambient flows. Indeed, with an attitude that screams 'if it ain't broke, break it,' it's impossible to predict where he'll go next.
Kid 606's closest analogue in the UK is Richard James (the Aphex Twin) who he shares an interest in the mechanics of sound and rhythm with. Unlike James, there's an unspoken political edge to the Kid's work which will ensure he's always an outsider. His latest album, the tongue in cheek titled PS I Love You shows a mellower side to Kid 606's muse. In America, there's a musical genre known as IDM ? intelligent dance music ? and the album is Kid's foray into these murky waters. The patronising title hints at the sort of superiority claimed by prog rock musicians and Kid 606 is suitably scathing.
'I hate IDM and its elitist champions. It makes the music sound so much more than it actually is. It's a label invented by PR companies who need catchphrases. I like sounds, but hate what people attach to sounds. I made the album because I wanted to record something that wouldn't offend my mum or girlfriend.'

'Hate' is a word that crops up regularly during our conversation. Scathing about other musicians, the music industry and even the labels that support him, Kid 606 is as uncompromising in the flesh as he is on CD. Yet, he's not a difficult person to interview. Polite and enthusiastic, he knows exactly what he's doing and how to achieve it.

He claims he got into recording because he wanted to make anti-music. After several years of tinkering with electronics he found he could achieve his aims with a laptop. 'I use several different programmes, but the laptop's definitely not a simple DSP composition tool. I compare what I do with dub mixing, or DJing with ten times the power. I can store masses of sound information on the computer and access it instantly.'
Composition is perhaps not the best description of Kid 606's working methods, his stock in trade is recontextualisation ? the creation of something new and exciting from his base material.
'Like a dub sound system, I can do something and then replay it. This excites people. I can make things crazy, add more bass, add some ambience, change things around.'

Kid 606 promises the Medicine Bar show will be 'really extreme' and warns that anyone who's only familiar with his work from the soft shapes of PS I Love You may well be taken aback.
'I think it will shock people. The last album was a result of too many good relationships. The live show is nothing like that at all.'
Keeping track of Kid 606's releases is a task not for the faint hearted. With singles and remixes appearing all over the place, he's certainly not short of exposure. His own label, Tigerbeat 6, is doing remarkably well, all the more so because its roster comprises the sort of musicians who would not see daylight anywhere else.

'It's confrontational stuff, the sort of material that no-one else will put out. Stuff that hasn't been done before.'
Kid 606's vision for Tigerbeat 6 sums up his negative stance to the music industry as a whole. 'There's no success in releasing something that [famous UK electronic label] Warp would release. We don't want to be part of a new clique. I'm sick to death of labels who want to use me as underground credibility and then do something that's not as radical.
The electronic music scene is in a slump. There are too many CD-R releases. Even established labels such as Warp can only manage a few releases a year. Look at us. We're young and exciting and provide an outlet. Electronic music is still a new form and you can't afford to rest on your laurels.'