Waves of Guessing

Though they prefer to label themselves an instrumental rock band, Seattle quartet Kinski are key players in global psychedelic music. By itself, their music—alternately spacey, roaring, and simmering, led by sandstorm guitars—makes them one of America's leading psych exponents. Initially a trio of Chris Martin, Lucy Atkinson, and Dave Weeks (the lineup that made the group's 1999 debut, SpaceLaunch for Frenchie), they added Matthew Reid-Schwartz a year later and have since recorded two more albums, 2001's Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle (Pacifico) and 2003's Airs Above Your Station (Sub Pop), the latter with Weeks' replacement, Barrett Wilke, on drums. Kinski have also been a conduit for the global psych scene to infiltrate the American West Coast, setting up and/or playing shows with Japan's Acid Mothers Temple and Sweden's Trad, Gras Och Stenar. They also recently opened for post-punk legends Mission of Burma on that band's reunion tour. The Jukebox took place at Seattle Weekly's offices.

Chris Knox: "Citric Acid" (1988) from Meat (Communion)

Chris Martin: It's not Belle & Sebastian?

Seattle Weekly: No. Wrong side of the world.

Martin: It's a '60s thing?

SW: It's a late-'80s thing.

Lucy Atkinson: [laughs] We're way off.

Martin: It sounds like something that could be on KEXP right now.

SW: It definitely does. It's not English—it's from an English-speaking nation, but it's not a Western nation.

Martin: Tall Dwarfs? Chris Knox?

SW: Yes, Chris Knox. A friend suggested I play you something from New Zealand.

Martin: I have a couple of their things, but most of the New Zealand stuff I have is the straighter, poppy stuff like the Clean or the Chills. This is a little quirkier.

SW: What was your introduction to that particular kind of stuff?

Atkinson: Working at the radio station in Bozeman, Mont.

SW: That's where you went to school?

Atkinson: Yeah. I was from Montana and went to school in Bozeman, and I met Chris at school, at the radio station.

Martin: The first thing I remember was the Chills. I remember hearing that on somebody's radio show, and it was kinda one of those times where, like, everything kinda stopped and I said, "What is this?" It was in the late '80s. So it was kind of right when all the stuff was coming out early and a little after, I guess.

SW: What kind of shows were you doing?

Atkinson: Well, Chris was more experienced then—he was the music director. I just had a radio show at 2 or 3 in the morning.

SW: What kind of stuff were you playing?

Atkinson: At that time, I was playing a lot of '60s girl-group kinds of things, girl groups and the Kinks.

Martin: You'd play a lot of Redd Kross and stuff like that, too.

Atkinson: Oh yeah, of course.

Martin: I just found out I got a little show on that station, KBCS, so I'll be starting over again on the graveyard [shift].

SW: What kind of stuff are you planning on playing?

Martin: I kind of want it to be more free-form—'60s and '70s psychedelic and Japanese stuff, and mix in some psych-folk stuff. I think there are a few shows like that in town, but not many.

Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.: "L 'Ambition dans le Miroir" (2004) from Mantra of Love (Alien8)

Martin: [immediately] Acid Mothers. [laughs]

SW: Now you obviously worked with those guys before—how was that arranged?

Martin: That's the best thing about the Internet: We saw a newsgroup, and somebody posted who'd just gotten that Mainliner record, Mellow Out, and somebody asked, "Do any bands want to tour with Mainliner?" We had just started, we didn't even have the first record out, but we said, "Yeah, we will," just for fun. Makoto Kawabata, from Acid Mothers, was in that group, and we just all hit it off.

SW: You guys started around '97 or '98 or so?

Atkinson: It was '99.

Martin: That's when our first record actually came out.

SW: What are the Acid Mothers like to tour with?

Martin: They're pretty normal. They're pretty straightforward people; they just wanna play. When we get to the club, they're sitting around from 5 to 7, and they all like to drink, but nothing overboard.

Atkinson: They're not quite easy to talk to—Kawabata is, but the rest of them aren't. I think that's mostly because they don't know a lot of English.

Martin: Most all the bands we toured with, like Hovercraft and Major Stars, those bands are considered out, I guess. I can't think of any stories of people taking drugs or whatever; everybody's pretty straight. I mean, we all have to get up and drive the next day.

SW: There's a real work ethic involved in indie rock in order to make any kind of living at it.

Martin: Mark E. Smith was pretty fucked up. We played with the Fall once, and we didn't expect him to be nice, but Matthew, our guitar player, was a really big fan, and [Smith] was kind of a prick to him.