Khotin
KIND 013
Khotin Industries
At some point within the past decade, Dylan Khotin-Foote began to slowly step back from the dancefloor. He moved home from Vancouver to Edmonton, started playing fewer gigs and initiated a run of ambient and new age releases. What resulted were some truly gorgeous records, filled with melodies he’d often hammered out on his beloved Casio SK-1.
Yet Khotin-Foote never fully left clubland behind. He simply moved out of the main room. On 2023’s Release Spirit, for example, he channeled vintage chillout music, his sluggish breakbeats and plaintive 303s evoking Boards of Canada, Biosphere and the usual crop of late-’90s electronica that still had a hint of bite to it.
Even so, KIND 013 is a bit of a surprise, returning to the laid-back house aesthetic that he debuted in the mid 2010s on labels like 1080p and Normals Welcome. Although it’s still very much a Khotin record—bird samples abound—its A-side in particular feels like he’s picking up where he left off more than a decade ago. The keys solo on “Tropique 707” over (you guessed it) 707 snares and hi-hats could have soundtracked Cafe Del Mar sunsets at any time during the past 30 years (did I mention the flute?), and “Resobeat (’89 Mix)” is Balearic house in its Platonic form, its loose hand drums cruising along as the song’s chords slowly fade like contrails in a late summer sky.
My favorite track, however, is the slightly edgier “Rays Ways,” where a warm, chunky bassline takes center stage, providing a sense of forward momentum that offsets the echoing dub washing across the melody. It’s subtle, for sure, but this is the tune you’ll reach for when you’re wrapping up your warm-up set and getting ready to hand over for peak time.
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