Often, emerging artists can be hard to find within the locked-down world. Word of mouth, in particular, seems to be dampened by a search for comfort in the audibly familiar. Leaving those artists who used to keep bodies moving in the early hours of the morning by the wayside and people like us searching the depths of the internet for new music.
Anna Kost first came to our attention through a parting note within an article by Scuba for Red Bull Radio. Hidden at the bottom of the listicle under the likes of Effy and Gaskin, the Hotflush founder noted Kost as one of the best new producers of house and techno despite the fact that at this point in 2020 she was still yet to release any music.
Now, just over a year after the release of this article, a lot has changed. Notably, she released her debut EP, ‘Abaddon’, and has been featured in On The Resistance Vol 3. a mixtape created by the Roman label Suburban Avenue and mixed by Italian DJ Mattia Trani. Yet despite these releases, there is a deafness to Kost’s musical worship to rave culture.
“With tracks that make your heart tremble through forceful reliance on the backbeat, she etches the sounds of the collective euphoria we all miss so dearly”
Normally, when we start these pieces, we start by dissection of an artist’s musical journey. Plotting a path of words to point towards how they found their voice and specific electronic community, however we don’t have the kind of detail to do this for Kost. Instead of pages of interviews, we have simply brief bios and the cacophony of sound created within her tracks.
What we do know is that she is a Berlin-based Russian producer and DJ whose music is as expansive as it is euphoric. With tracks that make your heart tremble through forceful reliance on the backbeat, she etches the sounds of the collective euphoria we all miss so dearly.
Allowing her music to speak for itself, her debut EP, released back in October through the UK-based techno label EarToTheGround Records, is larger than life.
Opening with the track entitled ‘Ker’, she brings the word’s linguistic origins to life. As a prefix often attached to imply the sound of a thud (with additional links to a destructive spirit within Ancient Greek religion), this track is unsurprisingly unrelenting. Seizing every opportunity to attempt to break free from the airwaves it finds itself within.
“she moves from breaking the barriers of sound to conjuring a tsunami of complex layers”
Continuing the storm with ‘Tehom’ she moves from breaking the barriers of sound to conjuring a tsunami of complex layers. A title with biblical references to the deep waters of creation, the track opens a sinkhole of sustained drones and fuzzing bubbles fighting their way to the surface.
Together with the similarly dark and unearthly tracks ‘9-11’ and ‘Hades’, Kost gets under your skin. Leaving you unable to shake her vibrations which seemingly hold your body together.
With restrictions pushed back once again and our connections to underground clubs falling further into the distance, Anna Kost is the dark angel of techno to keep your love of rave culture alive.