Dancing between rain and fire: Kidislive on art, family, and finding balance

Kidislive has built a reputation around embracing creative freedom over convention. Refusing to be confined by a single sound, the producer’s work balances club-focused functionality with cinematic textures, emotional storytelling, and a constant drive to experiment.

Photo credit: Kidislive – Official

Beyond the studio, he also channels his creative vision through his own imprint, Mad Motel, where music and visual art come together as part of a broader artistic identity.

That vision continues with his latest release, ‘MAD MOTEL 003,’   to be out September 3rd, 2026. Across four tracks, the EP moves between radiant atmospheres, elastic grooves, haunting vocal passages, and introspective moments, further expanding the sonic world he has been carefully shaping through the label.

In this conversation, Kidislive reflects on his evolving creative process, balancing artistic ambition with family life, the philosophy behind Mad Motel, and why he hopes to be remembered not for fitting into a genre, but for creating an experience.

EG: Hi Kidislive, welcome to Electronic Groove. It’s great to have you with us. How have you been lately, and what has life looked like in the lead-up to ‘MAD MOTEL 003’?

Kidislive: Well, thank you deeply for having me and asking to do this piece; it’s an honor. I love EG and what you guys have been doing for the industry for many years now, so before anything, I’m very honored and flattered. My life has been amazingly insane lately, running two businesses, two kids, and a wife, but I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I guess.

EG: Thanks for your kind words; it’s been a labour of love. ‘MAD MOTEL 003’ feels highly cinematic, almost like four different rooms inside the same strange building. Was there a central idea or emotional thread that connected these tracks from the beginning, or did that narrative only reveal itself once the EP was finished?

Kidislive: That’s a great question… The narrative only reveals itself once I’m putting together the EP. What I usually do is “sprint produce” several times a year, where I’ll churn out a new track every evening in my studio and do that for about two weeks straight. I’ll listen to the songs over and over again, make little tweaks here and there until I finally feel I have an interesting release I can prepare to launch. Sometimes tracks that don’t make the cut at that moment end up coming back to life months, even years later.

EG: Your productions often blur the line between club functionality and more introspective listening experiences. When you’re creating music, are you primarily thinking about the dancefloor, or are you trying to tell a story first and letting the club context come afterwards?

Kidislive: I find myself these days making that decision before I start creating, whereas my older process was just to set the BPM and experiment. Lately, I am trying to make more songs that are dancefloor-ready. I have this newborn itch to want to play out. Last winter I spent close to US$ 10,000 on Discogs in a marathon listening and digging fest, so between those gems and my work I am ready to deliver sermons.

EG: This is the latest release on your own imprint, Mad Motel. What does the label represent beyond simply being a platform for your music? Is it becoming an extension of your artistic identity?

Kidislive: Bingo. What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I am also a visual artist. On this upcoming release, I had the idea to paint and design the ‘MAD MOTEL 003’ artwork for the record labels and record jacket. So moving forward, all the Mad Motel releases will have my paintings and designs working in tandem with the music.

EG: Across the EP, there’s a constant tension between warmth and unease, as beautiful melodies sit alongside unsettling textures and unexpected rhythmic turns. Is that contrast something you consciously pursue, or is it simply the most honest reflection of where your creativity naturally takes you?

Kidislive: I genuinely feel blessed as a human being. I have a beautiful family, a healthy family, and the ability to finance my dream of making music and running a label. But there is another side to my reality, one which is full of major responsibilities and being, in so many ways, forced to work with people I do not want to in order to provide for my family. These two worlds of pleasure and pain embody my existence and are clearly shown in my work. It’s a continuous dance between rain and fire for me.

“Music production for me is a game of addition and subtraction with a little spiritual calculus mixed in the corner”

EG: The track titles ‘Swinger Garden,’ ‘Hit Piece,’ ‘Husband Wife Shit,’ and ‘Valoria’ are unusually evocative and leave plenty of room for interpretation. How important are titles within your creative process, and do they come before or after the music itself?

Kidislive: Track names are a fun process for me. I actually have a Google Doc called ‘Track Names.’ Anytime I think of something interesting, hooky, catchy, or original, I jot it down and later see if something on my list embodies the song I am trying to name. Other times I’ll make a song and the lyrical hook becomes the track name, or I’ll twist some of the words around and title it that way.

EG: Your productions are rich with small details: subtle textures, shifting percussion, and evolving layers that reveal themselves over repeated listens. How do you know when a track has reached that balance between complexity and restraint?

Kidislive: One time, Jackson Pollock was asked how he knew he was finished with a painting. His epic reply was, “How do you know when you’re done making love?” That has always stayed with me and applies deeply to my music, paintings, and art in general. Music production for me is a game of addition and subtraction with a little spiritual calculus mixed in the corner.

EG: Electronic music often rewards consistency, yet your work seems driven by experimentation and refusing to settle into one formula. How do you continue challenging yourself without losing the core identity that makes your music recognizable?

Kidislive: It’s funny you’re touching on this, and it’s a question I’ve been dying to answer, so this is serendipitous in so many ways. I love how I can release an EP and have Laurent Garnier love it and comment to my PR team about how great it is, then on the following release he won’t like it at all, but another huge artist does. DJ Sasha, in an interview many, many moons ago, said a great DJ can take music from all genres and wield them together in a way that makes them unique and delivers the point. I have always marched to this drum as both a DJ and a producer. I hope one day I’ll be remembered as Kidislive—”an experience” rather than Kidislive, “the minimal techno DJ.”

EG: Looking beyond this EP, where do you feel your sound is heading? Are there new influences, techniques, or ideas you’re eager to explore over the next chapter of your career?

Kidislive: I feel, for the first time in my career as an artist, that I am laser-focused on my direction. I have infinite ideas of what I want to do with my sound, label, and performances. I just want to keep things moving in the best way I can and surround myself with amazing people who share the same energy and frequency as me.

“It’s a continuous dance between rain and fire for me”

EG: Finally, if someone were discovering Kidislive for the very first time through ‘MAD MOTEL 003’, what would you hope they take away from those four tracks?

Kidislive: Axel Boman recently made a nice comment to me and said my music sounds like it’s a work in progress because it’s raw, uncut, and doesn’t follow the trend of overly processed or compressed productions in the space. While some artists might have taken that comment as a fork in the road, I felt flattered that he acknowledged what I am truly about. I guess that’s the answer: if I can get listeners to hear my music and want to come back to it again, then I must be doing something right for them. But I won’t let negative feedback, or no feedback at all, derail my drive or my output.

EG: Thank you so much for your time. We wish you all the best with ‘MAD MOTEL 003’ and everything ahead. Take care!

Kidislive: Deeply enchanted once again! Cheers, and thanks for having me.

Kidislive’s ‘MAD MOTEL 003’ will be out September 3rd via Mad Motel.  Pre-order your copy here.

Follow Kidislive: Spotify | SoundCloud | Instagram