London-based producer and DJ
rkss (Robin Buckley) makes experimental electronic music which deconstructs elements of EDM and club culture. Releases such as 2018's
DJ Tools repurpose sounds familiar to mainstream dance music, transforming them into abstract pieces using processing techniques common to more academic computer music.
Originally from Germany,
rkss began releasing hazy, abstract techno in 2012. Following two EPs, Basement and 2013's Submerged, a cassette and zine titled Tunnel, featuring tracks constructed from found video clips, was released by Reject and Fade in 2014. This was followed by 2015's Cell on Seagrave. 2016's Top Charted (on Where to Now?) experimented with elements of trance and EDM, while Cutoff (on Alien Jams) was an EP of house abstractions inspired by
Theo Parrish and DJ Sprinkles. In 2017,
rkss released Brostep in the Style of Florian Hecker, an electroacoustic composition created using consumer software typically used to create dubstep tracks. A video game, designed by Calum Gunn (
Acrnym), was also released in conjunction with the piece. This was followed by
DJ Tools, a 2018 release on
Lee Gamble's UIQ label. The album was created entirely from a sample pack called EDM Kicks, Vol. 1, and its track titles were taken from the product's typo-ridden sales sheet. Around the same time,
rkss released DJ Tools (Illegal Material), a bootleg collection of edits of dance-pop hits by artists such as
the Vengaboys,
Daft Punk, and
Underworld. ~ Paul Simpson