Our latest guest is Scotland’s Chris McCarry, an arts community + events organizer in Glasgow through his company, Hohm Productions, and DJ and budding producer under the Kinoko moniker. He answers our questions, and shares a cinematic mix featuring tracks by Biosphere, Moby, Leit Motif, and more.

Name: Kinoko.

Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland.

Current city / place of residence: Glasgow.

Home away from home: Manchester (Honestly I am more adventurous than I seem 🙂 ).

Last great thing you read: One of the last things I read was The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman, Professor of Cognitive Science at University of California. Hoffman challenges our perception of objective reality, stating we evolved to perceive reality for survival not to observe the true underlying nature of reality. The book questions consciousness and it’s fundamental nature in the Universe.

What instruments / hardware do you use most? For mixing I use Technics 1210 MK2s turntables and XDJ1000 MK2s recorded through a laptop. I am slowly getting into production so just a Laptop with Ableton and a Push controller but I also have a 88 midi keyboard and random bits. I sing a lot and play keys too but also just got a Guild m-240e troubadour guitar which is delightful, so I hope to incorporate all that into things.

Tell us about your company, HOHM Productions: HOHM Productions started out as an outlet for various nights that were mixed arts and supported local causes. It was about connecting people, collaborating and putting on a show. That evolved into a business for hiring out spaces for creative purposes which I do as Sauchiehall Studios and hope to progress that as we navigate the present covid situation but hopefully the space can be utilised to offer people the freedom to be creative on their terms with HOHM continuing to function through it also.

Is Kinoko your DJ alias, or do you also produce your own tracks? Kinoko is both, I started as a DJ playing ambient/chillout stuff which was fun and quite therapeutic, now I am looking to get into production as I have the time, space, and resources to do so. 

Can you pick two tracks from the mix and say a little bit about them?

Solar Fields – “Circles in Motion” from the album Movements. I like the quality of the sound design and the journey the track and album go on, it is chilled but energetic. It’s like a nice meandering space walk without the dread of the void of space!

Colin Mawson – “Insomniac Café” from the album Miniature Epiphanies. I really enjoyed the whole album and wanted to mix some tracks from it. I found this track very charming and playful but also thoughtful and interesting with a warm emotion to it like most of the album has, it had some childhood gaming vibes for me too.

Tracklist:

Ken Nato – “Windows 98 Start-up Theme” (Iceferno Re-Edit)

Moby – “LA6” – Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep. (Little Idiot, 2016)

ASC – “Vanishing Point” – Time Heals All (Silent Season, 2013)

Biosphere – “Hyperborea” – Substrata (Origo, 1997)

Solar Fields – “Circles in Motion” – Movements (Ultimae, 2009)

Ricardo Donoso – “Equivalence of Thirteen” – Assimilating the Shadow (Digitalis, 2012)

Phaeleh – “Child of the Lake” – Illusion of the Tale (Undertow, 2016)

Peter Kirn – “PCS1” – Pink Cloud Syndrome (Detroit Underground, 2018)

Leit Motif – “The Leap” – Dreamwork (Light At the End, 2021)

Colin Mawson – “Insomniac Café” Miniature Epiphanies (Disintegration State, 2018)

Deceptikon – “From Time From Time” Presidio (Project: Mooncircle, 2015)