#10 Feat. Staff Picks in Bass / Club

5 years after the New York label launched into the uncertain world of the COVID pandemic, Kindergartens place in the New York landscape is secured. Today, the label releases its most laser-focused collection of tracks to mark the anniversary, punctuating a deep catalogue of heaters that have pushed a unique take on bass music marked by a fervent futurism and scattergun rhythmic flourish. Kindergarten has acted as a nursery of creativity for a core crew of artists discovered through physical proximity and online connection alike, and always through shared appreciation for tough and ready dancefloor sounds and genuine friendship. Fitting then, that every one of the Kindergarten alumni returns with quintessential rhythmic intricacy and head-spinning quirk, reaching for what now feel like classic Kindergarten touchpoints. Whether its knotty, muscular techno (Zipper, Tidal Bore, Lips Loose), weapons-grade sound-design (FBchord, Blah), somersaulting 160 (Mushin, splattertek, Dash You) or gnarled nods to trance (rAin, Aether Wounds, what the body does) the essence of Kindergarten is here in all its amorphic glory. Helmed by a queer woman amid the traditionally cishet and hypermasculine bass music milieu, Kindergarten helped pioneer these sounds in a city that had yet to fully adopt them as its own. Inclusivity and a family feel is at the heart of the label: witness any of Kindergartens monthly mega b2bs on The Lot Radio and you can feel how much fun the crew have playing together and how freely ideas bounce around. As ever, these tracks are bound by the same wild abandon at their core. Five years is a long time in club music, and its no easy feat to build a catalogue of music and a tight-knit community of people, all with disparate influences, and remain committed to experimentation and play while the results retain a crystallized identity. But listen to any of the eleven tracks in here and you will know what makes a Kindergarten record.

Slacker, georg-i