Recognise 082: Kilbourne

If you take the record’s conceit at its face — that clubs are, on some level, fantastical spaces, and that world-building is both critical and a bit thorny — it’s worth looking at the map Kilbourne’s sketched out for herself. In 2023, she founded Hammerhead, a label and event series that has turned into a one-of-one spot in contemporary dance music. “Hammerhead is a hardcore party,” she says, “but I’m engaged in a bit of a paradoxical task: I want to create a genre party that’s genreless. I want to bring in artists who might not be hardcore DJs or producers, but they’re making music that’s fast, kinetic, and dynamic in a way that feels similar to hardcore for me.” 

Elsewhere in our conversation, she underlines that idea by shouting out HELLTEKK, a New York party that’s “really sharply aware of hardcore history but is also making cool and weird shit,” and Vacance, a Swiss crew making “dreamy, ambient, and brutal” dance music. Again: hardcore is a feeling.

But, as with any great club night, Hammerhead is about so much more than just the music. “A lot of the hardcore nights I’ve been to in Europe lean white and straight,” Kilbourne says. “There’s certainly more queer people, trans people, women, and people of colour at Hammerhead parties than other hardcore parties I’ve experienced.” Nurturing that community is clearly a point of pride for Kilbourne — she’s played all manner of 80,000-capacity festivals across the Atlantic, but Hammerhead caps out at about 300. “I didn’t see [hardcore] in a space with other people besides my headphones or in someone’s car until I’d been listening to it for five or six years,” she explains. “I wanted something that felt more intimate.” Maybe it’s rich to compare Hammerhead to a Subaru covered in punk rock stickers, but maybe it’s not so far off.

Her Recognise mix is emblematic of the party’s sound: a two-hour onslaught ripped live from a Hammerhead party from 17th January this year. It’s acrobatic, playful, and storming in equal measure; throughout, Kilbourne sprints between Rotterdam, Trinidad and Tobago, Philadelphia, Durban, and so many more corners of the globe, keeping her ear trained towards the fast-and-heavy end of dance music.

After a decade spent chasing hardcore down increasingly psychedelic rabbit holes, the question becomes: what’s next? In truth, it seems like Kilbourne may have found her lane. When we speak, she’s in the process of cooking up new (“clubbier”) music, and is preparing for her debut with Cry, a duo she’s formed with fellow electronic experimentalist Relaxer that will focus on what she’s dubbed “live punk techno destruction”. That exploration is par for the course — Kilbourne is eager to stretch her chosen medium in as many directions as it can go, keeping her eye on communal uplift and thousand-dB kicks all the way. 

“As I’ve professionalised in music,” she reflects near the end of our conversation, “I’ve felt a real desire to push towards the next rung up on the ladder, or whatever. But I’ve realised that’s not my ambition any more. The Hammerhead parties might be the most rewarding thing I’ve got going. It’s nice: a bit less of chasing the dragon.” That comfort has afforded her ample freedom to go deep, but she’s hardly resting on her laurels; instead, she’s keen to challenge her own styles and impulses. “What is the music I feel meant to make? I don’t have a real answer to that question,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “But it’s something I ought to explore.”

Listen to Kilbourne’s Recognise mix, and check the tracklist, below.