Capitol K

I was djing at the Sprawl club in London in mid ’98 when a girl came up to me and handed me a demo tape entitled “Capitol K”. I didn’t hear what she said (I was mixing in Urban Shakedown’s Arsonist VIP dub at the time) but I assumed it was hers. When I got home I put on the demo and it jumped out at me. It contained 2 tracks, “Jump Off The Box” which captivated me with it’s backwards guitar, mumbled vocals & hi-Q snare rolls and “Song For Belgium” which had thundering live drums and great smudges of tape manipulated atonal guitar loops (in dub). Well, this was not the sort of thing I was used to getting and I rang the number on the tape. Turned out it was this guy Kristian Robinson (and it was handed me by his flatmate who was also friends with Elf-Cut, the label where his debut EP was released). Over the next few months K sent me the remaining tracks which made up his debut “Sounds Of The Empire” which is still one of the best debut albums I have heard. His sound combines smudged electronics with lo-fi rock and the results are fucking great. Kristian is really an original artist doing his own thing.