detroit.dance live – vol. 016 : EXT EST + Interview

03.02.2021

This week’s guest mix is by EXT EST, or Kirill Slavin of Industrial Detroit. He has many side projects, interests, and is also involved with the Detroit Kung Fu Academy, which has multiple locations around Detroit and has been doing online classes as well due to COVID-19.

I am happy to have him on for this week’s mix feature, giving you something a bit darker and moodier to listen to and (if you didn’t know Kirill already) introducing you to a wonderful multi-talented individual that is a part of our Detroit electronic music community. I met him from a random Facebook event that came up in my feed, which ended up being a party at his loft in Eastern Market (RIP), and have been around the community of Industrial Detroit people ever since.

In his interview, we talk about things like his involvement with the Detroit Kung Fu Academy and Industrial Detroit, a skill he’d like to learn, his view on hobbies, what goes through his mind on a daily basis, his plans for 2021, and more.

This is also the second week of our new partnership with Deep Space Radio! Each mix will exclusively premiere on Deep Space Radio at noon on Wednesday – and then be available on the detroit.dance SoundCloud as per usual at 3:13pm EST.

Be sure to check out his mix, on SoundCloud now. I hope you enjoy!

detroit.dance: What do you do outside of music?

EXT EST: I punch people in the face and they give me money. *laughs* No, I teach martial arts. That’s one of my incomes. I also do some design stuff. And I do some art, sometimes that pays me. So there’s like a variety, a few income sources. I recommend that for people. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, you know, diversify that portfolio.

detroit.dance: What are your hobbies?

EXT EST: I don’t have hobbies. I take what people consider to be hobbies, and I try to pursue them to the full extent of my being and it turns into something. I feel like hobbies you do kind of on the side, kind of half-assed, and you’re not really into it. You’re doing it to pass time. And honestly, it’s hard to be motivated to do anything if you have a nine to five. It’s crushing. So, I’m sure you and I and many other people are well aware, if you have a steady job as they say, you’re working let’s say 40 to 50 hours a week. But there’s a limited amount of energy that a person has to put into stuff. So when you get home from work you already spent that energy doing something for other people, and it ends up being hard to explore art stuff or anything creative. I get home and just want to watch TV.

detroit.dance: Yeah, I follow a lot of artists on Twitter. And eventually once they get big enough, they quit their nine to five and then focus on art because of that whole energy thing.

EXT EST: Yeah. And that’s a hard jump off point. I feel like with that, you don’t get to that point unless you embrace a certain amount of entrepreneurship, you know, making things happen for yourself. There’s a certain amount of belief involved, jumping off a cliff with that decision. Whatever happens, sometimes it doesn’t work out, and you have to go back and get a stupid job again. If you’re a really creative person you will, I don’t necessarily recommend people do it unless they really feel like it’s right. All through my 20s I had these car industry jobs. I’d do things like engineering and sales. First of all, I never saved any money. Even though the pay was okay, you still end up spending all the money. Also it was completely soul crushing. I could feel my soul being whisked away every day under those fluorescent lights. So I knew I had to change that shit. It’s not like that for everybody, some people enjoy that shit. You don’t have to think about what you’re gonna do at your job. When you’re doing your own stuff you have to be creative, which is a good thing but also a curse because you always have days where you don’t feel like doing anything. 

detroit.dance: How long have you been involved with the Detroit Kung Fu Academy? Talk about that and what you offer, and your transition from in-person to online learning. 

EXT EST: I’ve been doing kung fu since about 2002. It’s something that I stuck with because it keeps being interesting to me. And of course there’s many facets to it, that’s the main focus and how it’s beneficial. It’s also beneficial to go to the gym every day, but you don’t because it’s not interesting. Or maybe that’s just me, I can’t. But the kung fu stuff, there’s enough science involved in it that it keeps being interesting. And yes, this whole thing with COVID, it has been a fascinating study about what kung fu is, because you can’t touch hands with people, there’s no contact. Furthermore, you can’t have in-person classes during the lockdowns. The crazy thing is, is that the kung fu still works without all that, which is remarkable. We’ve been doing Zoom classes and I have students now on Zoom that have only been on Zoom. And some of them are in places like California. They’ve been training for like six to eight months now since the start of the pandemic, and they’re doing pretty good. They keep coming back multiple times a week, and that’s pretty interesting to me. So there’s something in the way that the system was put together where you can do conditioning and forms, and still build your kung fu, and still have that more relaxed mind. There’s obviously health benefits and learning self defense ability too. You can do all that without touching hands and that’s pretty remarkable. Of course touching hands is great, and I can’t wait to get back to it, but the fact that it works without it is pretty interesting. 

What we offer is online classes, and we’ve just started doing in-person classes again. And, you know, we really like engaging with the community of other people that do this martial art as well. That’s one of the benefits of it. I think that’s really important right now is to feel like you’re part of a community. Now of course it’s also super important in order to learn how to defend yourself, preemptively, not after you get fucked up. So, yeah, that’s what I got going on there.

Find out more about their classes and what they offer at their website, here.

detroit.dance: Do you have a favorite moment or memory so far from your own personal journey with kung fu or at the Detroit Kung Fu Academy?

EXT EST: Good question. I wouldn’t say this is a memory, but it’s more of a feeling. There’ve been a few workouts that were exceptional after going all day and that feeling after that, like being completely relaxed and your mind is kinda empty…I think that’s my favorite part.

detroit.dance: Let’s talk about your past and your history with music and how you got to the point where you are at now. 

EXT EST: Oh my goodness, this might take a while. So, I started messing around with sound probably around the mid-90s. It was something to do, you know, as a kid in high school, hanging out for a couple of friends and we had a drum machine…I forget where we got that. We were trying to program some tape loops and stuff like that, and so I started more in the experimental noise part of it… and I used like four tracks to make loops and record, that kind of stuff. Then it progressed into sequencing. I started working on this project called DeLIEN that I started doing vocals for, but I got more into doing the sequencing stuff and that has been my love since then. It’s always been fascinating how to make sequences, the best beat possible, or the best piece possible. And through the years I had a few different projects. Now I do this Industrial Detroit thing… we throw parties, I’ve put out some people I know and my own stuff on the label. Right now I’m working on some solo material, working on some stuff with Dave Cole for Fluxion A/D. I’m also working on a project with Chris Samuels from Virtual Howls called Mission To The Sun which is more of an ambient post-punk type feel, a little more cinematic. That’s coming out on April 2nd on the label Felte. That’s pretty much what I have going on without going too deep into the craziness of the past.

detroit.dance: So you already kind of touched on some projects you’re doing, could you elaborate a bit more on how they differ from each other?

EXT EST: David Cole, the guy who I was doing Fluxion A/D with he moved to Pittsburgh. So we’re not able to jam and work on any Fluxion A/D material, and it’s COVID time anyway so it’s kind of weird to do it. So he’s 300 miles away. Then during the pandemic I came up with a solo moniker which is EXT EST I’ve been doing some DJ stuff with that for my friend in LA who does a Twitch channel called SquareWav. I was doing a weekly residence on that with Cody (Veldt). We did that for a few months, it was an interesting experience. It’s kind of like being in the AOL chat room back in the late 90s, but with music. There’s a little community of people there as well. It’s interesting. I am also working on some solo releases with the EXT EST name as well. I have a bunch of tracks I’ve done, picking through them now, you know.

I had to step away from DJing honestly for a little bit because doing a weekly night, I ended up thinking about it a lot because you’re always thinking about the next set. An hour of music each week is a lot. So, I’d think about which tracks go with which tracks all the time. It did make me a better DJ, but it made me not want to work on music. Because like I said earlier, there’s only so much energy and headspace available.

detroit.dance: Talk about your label Industrial Detroit – who is involved, how did it come to be, what do you do kind of thing.

EXT EST: It is a collective in a way – so it’s me, Cody (Veldt) and Paul (Deadlines). That’s the core group, and Chris Samuels helps with some design stuff. He was also there in the very beginning. And David Cole helps out with different stuff… he made our cool sign. You do need a group of people to throw events. Paul for example will make video flyers for us, Cody is always down to perform, and that’s always great. We put our heads together and talk about what the next event is, which artists are going to be playing, and stuff like that. We try to diversify and bring new people on, but, you know, it’s an interesting scene, the industrial techno scene. As for the label, it has been me and the core group releasing tracks on it, but we are getting into releasing tracks from other people too. 

In general, I think it slowly emerged. It started with our logo. I got that logo from a Russian prison tattoo book. The meaning of it in that book was like, “Fuck the government, I’m free because my soul belongs to Satan” or something like that… “They can lock me up when I’m free, because my soul belongs to Satan”, something. But of course if you research that symbol it’s an ancient rune, it doesn’t mean that at all. It was a fun image to play around with and then Chris helped create the classic Industrial Detroit logo. Then the first thing I did was make some stickers. And then it evolved into a music thing and a label and parties and all that. It really did start with that image.

detroit.dance: There’s obviously not really any parties right now with COVID, but what are you going to do now that you don’t have the Eastern Market loft space?

EXT EST: The other location we have. We’re not trying to blow it up though, that loft was getting blown out, and that was part of the problem. It was fun, it was a good space. I loved it. Some good bangers in there. We’ve also done stuff at City Club. 

detroit.dance: I remember when I first showed up, I found you from a random Facebook event and I was like “I’m gonna go” and then here we are.

EXT EST: You walked up that dingy alley into a weird staircase, and then you walk in and you hear the music… I think it was set up the right way, you just had that mystique from it. It was definitely never meant as a long term thing of course, those kinds of things aren’t. It was a good piece of history while it lasted, and it enabled me to essentially rent the space out for other people to have parties there and I learned a lot from the way that they put those together, and people that came to play those parties, and also their promotional methods. They were doing stuff that was more accessible than what I like to play. So it was good to take their promotional methods and try to promote this weird industrial shit that nobody comes to with it and try and make that a dope party. There was a period of time from the mid to late 2000s to fuckin’ like 2015-16 where nobody was showing up to them. We had a good 10 year period of dryness, people were burned out on that. Industrial techno didn’t really emerge in Detroit until probably like 2015-16. I think the first successful thing we did when we started doing Industrial Detroit, was when we brought this guy Bombardier in for a City Club show. That night was supposed to be an 80s night, I was like “Hey, you should have Bombardier play”. And they were like, “This doesn’t sound like 80’s”. And then I was like, “No, no trust me, it’ll be great.” And it was, but it was a hard sell. They said I should do more of it and I was like, “I should.” That’s kind of how the whole thing snowballed. So shout out to Jason Snell aka Bombardier for rockin’ that party. And of course Joe from City Club. A few other people that were involved… Shan who gave it a chance to not be an 80’s night.

detroit.dance: What is the next skill that you’d like to learn?

EXT EST: I’m working on film stuff a lot, so I’d like to get more into that realm… to learn more about film production directing, putting it together, the whole thing.

detroit.dance: What are your plans for 2021?

EXT EST: As far as music goes, I’d like to finish a solo thing, I’d like to put out a few releases… there’s some on the table right now. Cody (Veldt) put out an album and there’s a remix album coming out this year for that. The other half of DeLIEN, Pete, has got something coming out. Red Hat is coming out with an album on Industrial Detroit too, there’s a few other releases in the works. So I want to concentrate on releasing those things and events, we’ll see what happens. I’m not in a great hurry to be in a dark room with 300 people again, or 100 people, or whatever, all close together.

detroit.dance: What does a day in your mind look like?

EXT EST: I try to follow the path of least resistance. I think that about sums it up. As the lightning shoots through the sky creating a pattern. I try to have my day go like that.

Make sure you check out EXT EST’s Destination Detroit (Belle Isle), and his Recipe by Request that will be posted on Friday (Scrambled Eggs with Cheese and Cajun Seasoning).

Keep up with EXT EST on his socials:

Fluxion A/D socials:

Mission to the Sun socials:

Keep up with Industrial Detroit on their socials: