Today i'm proud to present to you, one of, if not the, most exciting, authentic and fun bands in the country and certainly in Brighton.
Out of the saturated pop market of clones emerges :Kinema: offering gems of pop perfection that you can boogie too, without that feeling of guilt you get when you know Simon Cowell's pocket is somehow profiting.
When forced to pigeon hole, :Kinema: blend R'n'B, Disco, Indie and Pop to create a sumptuous mix of dance promoting songs.
I posed some questions to Dom from :Kinema: to see how the band have been tackling the challenge that is, making original, credible pop music.
1) Did your sound emerge naturally or did you make a conscious decision about the direction of the band's music?
I think these things develop quite naturally, but at the same time I think it's important to concentrate on forming an identity as a band. As a homogenous set of songs starts to appear I think you have to discard the things you have written that don't necessarily fit that identity. I'm not saying that all your songs should sound exactly the same, but once you've decided what it is you want to do musically. Whether its a dj set or an album or whatever, I think there is something unsatisfying about a collection of songs that is too eclectic. It's like the DJ or artist hasn't put much thought into the aesthetic of what they are doing. So yeah, I guess after you have 'discovered' your sound, the conscious part of the process is making sure it runs through your entire album or live set.
2) What sort of musical up bringing did you have and how do you think, if at all, this has influenced your current work?
Well, I have a theory that it's the music you hear most as a child that has the greatest effect on your tastes later in life. I remember reading an interview with Fourtet where he was talking about his dad being a big record collector and how he was exposed to a huge variety of weird and wonderful music as a child. That obviously had a big effect on him and he has often used samples from a lot of those records to create his own music. In terms of what I was exposed to as a kid, things were pretty different from that. My parents would mainly just play big soulful pop records - Sting, Simply Red, Phil Collins - all the really cool stuff basically :P I guess it has had some lasting effect on me though, as I seem to be writing soulful pop music of a sort. I would like to think though, that what we do is just as informed by the music that all of us in the band have discovered more recently. I am really into house and disco music and we all really like skweee and r'n'b and hopefully you can hear elements of all of those creeping into our more recent songs.
3) Do you feel as though operating in Brighton has had any influence at all on you as a band and how do you feel you fit into the Brighton scene?
Before I answer this question I would like to say that we love this town. We love living here, we call it home and its a place full of wonderful people. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else but to be honest it is really not a good place to be in a pop band. Despite there being a handful of promoters down here that have always been supportive of us, it has been difficult for us simply because it appears that a pop music scene is the only scene that Brighton doesn't really have. I'm pretty sure we are the only pop band in town and that has made us feel like outsiders really, which is quite ironic considering that pop music is supposedly so prevalent and commercial. Things only really got going for us when we started gigging in London and that's where we've been doing the majority of our shows.
4) What's the ultimate goal for the band and what can we expect in the near future?
In the near future we are releasing our 3rd single 'My Beautiful Machines' on Hot Pockets, which will be available mid January on vinyl or as digital download. I'm not sure we've thought much about an ultimate goal - our ambitions were kind of satisfied when we found someone who wanted to release a few singles of ours to be honest, and actually selling some of them has been great. We've probably started to allow ourselves to think a little bigger now though - I guess my ultimate goal has to be to marry Jennifer Aniston but we probably need to be a little more successful before she takes much notice of us.
5) What current DJs/Producers/Bands excite you at the moment?
Ha! I never know how to answer this question. I kind of consume music in two different ways. I do a lot of DJing and, speaking with my DJ hat on, the labels who's output I get most excited about are DFA, Gomma, Bear Funk, Jiscomusic, Compost, Permanent Vacation and those kind of things. I play Breakbot's 'Baby I'm Yours' an awful lot and Holy Ghost's 'Static On The Wire' EP as well.
If you are talking about what music I listen to at home though, I basically just have 'Panty Droppa' by Trey Songz on repeat.
:Kinema: have kindly given us their most recent track "3 Wolf Moon" as an early Christmas present in the form of a free download.
Originally recorded for Brighton magazine Source, this track coincides with the band becoming cover stars for the Christmas issue of the mag.
If only all christmas songs sounded like this...
