Clarisa Kimskii
Upcoming event: 12.10.2026 - 05:00
Unapologetic and fearless in both sound and spirit, DJ and producer Clarisa Kimskii approaches her craft with undeniable sensitivity. A resident at Seoul’s Volnost and Brooklyn’s Signal, her sets are instinctive, moulded to the environment and dancers before her. Balancing what she wants to play with, what the crowd wants and what she feels it needs, Kimskii moves through tension, confusion, joy and release with a precise technical command that never loses sight of emotion. Raw, hypnotic and psychedelic, her sound is rooted in driving techno, punctuated by house, breaks, melodic touches, grit and subtle distortion, with a deep groove laced throughout. Guided by the principle of honest connection, Kimskii considers close attention to key and frequency central to her storytelling. Narratives fluctuate in mood and temperature as tracks dissolve into one another, at its core she explains is a message to not give up, to keep moving, don’t quit, don’t get stuck. American with Korean and Polish roots, Kimskii’s sensitivity to different environments can be traced through a childhood spent moving between places and cultures. Born in Washington D.C., she credits the city as fundamental in shaping her musical world, discovering Black dance music through house and techno alongside punk, new wave, reggae and dub. Formative years in Seoul exposed her to hip-hop and electro, widening an already eclectic musical perspective. In the late 2000s, The Bunker New York became instrumental in Kimskii’s deeper commitment to techno.
Moving to Berlin in 2013 pushed this immersion further, with long dance marathons at Berghain becoming another key influence on her understanding of the dancefloor as a constantly shifting environment. After returning to New York in the mid 2010’s, queer parties like Unter showed her the sexual freedom and unfiltered queer expression possible within club culture. These experiences, combined with a life spent moving, fed into the adaptability and attentiveness that define her approach as a DJ. Her first invited residency at Merge gave her the space to further explore these instincts and define her sound, an approach she has since carried across dancefloors at Berghain, Basement, Nowadays and RAUM. Her production practice runs alongside this expansive history as a DJ, with releases across Monday Off, Dusk & Haze and Mysteries of the Deep, alongside her own vinyl imprint L.A.G. Now based in Rotterdam, she is turning renewed attention towards production and her forthcoming label Please and Thank You, conceived as a home for her own music and artists she believes in, with an ethos of respect, consideration and consent.
Moving to Berlin in 2013 pushed this immersion further, with long dance marathons at Berghain becoming another key influence on her understanding of the dancefloor as a constantly shifting environment. After returning to New York in the mid 2010’s, queer parties like Unter showed her the sexual freedom and unfiltered queer expression possible within club culture. These experiences, combined with a life spent moving, fed into the adaptability and attentiveness that define her approach as a DJ. Her first invited residency at Merge gave her the space to further explore these instincts and define her sound, an approach she has since carried across dancefloors at Berghain, Basement, Nowadays and RAUM. Her production practice runs alongside this expansive history as a DJ, with releases across Monday Off, Dusk & Haze and Mysteries of the Deep, alongside her own vinyl imprint L.A.G. Now based in Rotterdam, she is turning renewed attention towards production and her forthcoming label Please and Thank You, conceived as a home for her own music and artists she believes in, with an ethos of respect, consideration and consent.
