Crack

Caroline Herve, also known as Miss Kittin cuts an iconic figure in dance music.

A female figurehead in a male dominated industry, her strong, bold music and striking looks have seen her become both a music and fashion icon to a generation.

Her signature singing and song-based production in her album work has won plaudits, but it’s her beautifully progressive DJ sets, often including a live vocal element, that has seen her booked on some of the world’s biggest stages from Melt! to Sonar. Finally, her world-renowned work with long-term collaborator The Hacker not only heralded the commercial birth of electroclash, but also provided some of electronica’s finest moments in recent memory. Their fusing of contemporary production with strong, primitive electronic sounds and a full live show has seen performances all over the globe.

In celebration of her glittering career, the London based A Night With… party, in which a DJ takes the reigns for a full eight hours, has invited her to play on September 3rd, this after headlining We Love … Space Sundays in Ibiza on August 21st. She’s also found time to compile September’s Crackcast mix for us, available here.

Crack caught up with Miss Kittin to talk about the special A Night With … party, and her wider career.


You are playing A Night With … in early September in which you’re playing for eight hours. When was the last time you played for this long?

Last time I played that long was in Sao Paolo at D-Edge. I also play kind of long at my République parties when I invite a guest and we play all night long together, swapping every hour.

In terms of putting together a set that long, has it given you a chance to look back through your career and select some of your older records?

I always play old records, even when I play for one hour. Luckily, using a computer, I have my whole record collection with me. It’s fantastic to be able to think about a forgotten record and play it instantly.

You are also playing We Love … Space on the legendary Sundays

Yes, I am honoured. The We Love … team really work with their heart and expect the DJs to do the same. We Love… manages to bring all aspects of electronic music together in one night, like it used to be. I work hard to prepare my set for that kind of night.

In terms of production work, what are you working on at the moment and what can we expect from you in the immediate future?

I have an album I wrote last year nearly ready. I am taking my time to release it properly as I think my intuition will tell me how and when the time will be the best. Let’s say I am also being a bit lazy before jumping into promotion and touring as I’ve enjoyed my DJ life a little more this year. I’ve also started to dig more into club production. I am more at ease writing proper songs, so making a dance floor orientated EP on Mobilee just for DJs was a good challenge for me. I want to release more EPs here and there.

Does it ever frustrate you being consistently referenced in the same bracket as ‘electroclash’, this despite your sets incorporating some many other styles of music?

No I don’t mind, but it used to bother me at the beginning. The Hacker and me were inspired by pure ‘electro’ such as Dopplereffekt or I-F and never by any sort of glamour or fashion. Frank Sinatra was exactly against that. It’s like punk back in the day. MC5, New York Dolls and Ramones got fucked by the Sex Pistols’ hype. Underground rock’n’roll got labelled ‘punk’ even though it’d been around for ages. Electro got labelled electroclash in the same way, but now I am just blessed to have been part of the birth of a new genre. Any artist would be. As a DJ, I never did pure electroclash sets anyway, I always mixed everything I liked, from Autechre to Jeff Mills, Aphex Twin to tech-house or minimal. Fans complain I never play Miss Kittin and The Hacker tracks such as Frank Sinatra. It’s rare when I do.

As one of the most prominent female DJs/producers in the world, how do you see the role of women progressing in electronic music and which women do you particularly admire in this field?

Oh, boring question. It’s true, still, there are very few women, and when we reach a certain level we still probably don’t earn the same as our pairs! I just don’t want to get into this topic, too low level. I prefer to focus on what we bring, as individuals, to the music scene and what we try to express in our music. The strength to be free and be yourself, more than to be accepted by our peers or embrace a super cool lifestyle, and get drugs, groupies and easy money. I am quite close to Chloé, I love to play with Heidi, who is growing so well with her radio show, compilations and great DJ sets. Anja Schneider is also doing well. She started as a radio DJ, got into DJing in clubs later and founded her superb record label, Mobilee (I just released an EP for her). Girls usually get along with each other, so there’s no big competition.

You’ve always straddled being a vocalist and a producer. Few artists are able to do this successfully. How has one discipline informed the other?

I have no idea. I have my regular doubts about it. It’s not easy to be always ‘in between’. It’s confusing for people because what I write as a musician is quite different from my DJ taste. As I said, I barely play my own stuff because the songs I write aren’t made for dancing in the first place.

Who are you are you listening to at the moment and who has particularly inspired you in the last 12 months?

I am quite into Maceo Plex. I already liked Maetrik productions anyway and now he’s come back with his brilliant house project. It’s so smart and modern to mix his two influences, dark and romantic, techno and house. The production is also amazing. At home, I still listen to a lot of electronica, my other big passion – stuff like Biosphere and Bola.

What is your earliest musical memory?

The Beatles. When I was a baby, my parents used to play their albums all the time, especially the The White Album and Sergeant Pepper. I still remember my dad playing Let it Be on the guitar to make me fall sleep. Very early memory. My parents divorced when I was two.


- - - - - - - - - -

Miss Kittin has mixed the ninth installment in the Crackcast series. Download it here

Words: Thomas Frost

Tune: Stock Exchange

- - - - - - - - - -