KiNK is one of the most prolific record producers of our time. With little more than a Fender Rhodes piano, and a bit of a loop he’s able to conjure alluring House arrangements from what appears to be a bottomless pit of creative inspiration. His discography is a vast, expansive collection of music that is only defined by KiNK’s hands-on artistic process and the rudimentary designation, House music. Form follows function in KiNK’s work with a minimalists persuasion and a repetitive disposition with designs marked solely on the dance floor. He’s achieved success on almost every noteworthy House label around and has contributed his fair share of classic titles to dance music’s ever-expanding glossary.
His live shows and records move congruously with each other with the producer the central figure around which his machines orbit into life. Only one LP on Macro has managed to capture his idiosyncratic style in the album format, until Running Back invited the producer back for the ultimate succession, Playground which lines our shelf today.
There’s no pretentiousness about Playground, which like the EPs and singles before it, states its claim in the club context. An energetic pulse clamours up the walls and through your body as Playground unfolds through 3 records. Tracks like Samodiva and Peter Plete Plete might by noteworthy album fillers but for the rest of Playground there’s a toe-tapping inclination that weaves itself through the fabric of the album. Over the past 12 years KiNK has been perfecting an immediacy in his sound and the House genre with effective results that on Playground seems like the culmination of a career’s work. There’s no particular sonic personality to the album that you would not recognise as KiNK’s, and the songs stand on their own as much as they go from one into the next, like a deconstructed DJ set.
A taste of Metal and Yom Thorke stay with you long after the album is complete and although KiNK might not be breaking any new ground, there is very rarely a dull moment and the album lives up to its name. There’s a sense of fun communicated through every beat and melodic expression and its particularly contagious.