With a slew of critically-acclaimed singles and EPs already to her name, London-based DJ and producer NKISI has just announced the release her debut album in January.
NKISI is the alias of Congolese-born and Belgium-raised artist and NON Records co-founder Melika Ngombe Kolongo. Known for her hard-hitting productions and breakneck club sets, in which she darts between African club, gabber, trance, techno and doomcore, NKISI reshapes standard-issue club narratives in the image of a new, stateless hardcore sound.
Her new album, 7 Directions, tones down the intensity ever so slightly, zeroing in instead on Congolese percussive polyrhythms. Slated for release in January, it’s informed by the cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo, a Central African ethnic group, and works of the scholar Dr. Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau.
Listen to the final track, ‘VII’, below and catch NKISI live at the FIBER Weekends 2018 Sensory Shifts: Club & Performance Night at OT301 on Saturday, 1 December, as well as the Coded Matter(s) Conference at Lab111.