May 2023: Kincy’s Hauntology
From the short, dense, outstanding musical output of house producer Gemini, his 1999 record “Swimmin' Wit' Sharks” contains a premonition of his own fate. Beneath the track’s finger snaps and rubbery, liquid oddness, the artist also takes on the role of rapper, admonishing the shadiness that surrounds via rhyming couplets. “Instead of trying to understand me, you look me in my eyes and try to underhand me?” he asks. Later stating, “I know it’s all about business for y’all, and I can forgive this, but please bear witness to what happens when you try to diss this…” It was one of the last records Spencer Kincy released before abruptly withdrawing from music, and, seemingly, from his own life.
Kincy was an integral figure in the second wave of Chicago house, emerging from the city’s warehouses and clubs alongside fellow DJs Boo Williams and Mark Farina, producing for the record labels of peers like Cajmere’s Cajual, and Derrick Carter’s Classic. While all of these artists were able to stake out a unique persona, Kincy was the eccentric of the bunch, turning out productions that had all the hallmarks of deeper, jacking house while being undeniably off-kilter. His signatures were unusual note progressions, kick drums that were a touch too dominant, psychedelic synths, sweeping, shooting and tweeting sound effects, hints of jazz or electro where they’re least expected. It’s sadly ironic that his singular futurism vanished at the same moment as we crossed the threshold into the tech-fetishism of Y2K.
Rumour and conjecture about Kincy’s fate have swirled ever since. The only credible information to be published about him over the last two decades came from Chicago’s 5 Magazine, which reported some direct yet irregular periods of contact. The broad strokes were bleak: he suffered with financial and housing precarity, and periods of what appeared to be acute mental health crises. Yet as a house music comeback began gathering steam in the early 2010s, and with no meaningful advocacy for Kincy in place, some particularly gutless and heartless actors began mining Gemini’s ‘90s catalogue for gold. Reissues abounded, with vague platitudes from record labels about holding on to royalties for Kincy on his behalf. “There is now a veritable cottage industry built up around Spencer Kincy. Spencer himself has no part in it,” wrote 5 Magazine’s editor Terry Matthews, in 2012. “It really does feel like a man unfairly cut out of history has been pasted back in. But who’s doing it, and how it’s being done, is what’s troubling me.”
The commodification of Kincy’s work hits multiple pain points. The music industry at large has a long and terrible history of exploiting Black artists, and electronic music is no exception. There’s also a specific type of ghoulish interest that develops, with drooling intensity, whenever Black cultural output is attached to tales of trauma and distress. However the desire for Kincy’s triumphant comeback may not be lost. A UK-based label named Anotherday, which is purportedly either Kincy’s own or his choice of licensing partner, has been gradually reissuing his productions, which they maintain is done with his consent and collaboration, to generate some income. While there is now, finally, a more ethical outlet for Kincy’s work, another tender spot is simply a sense of loss over what could have been. Or, as The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality defines hauntology, a "nostalgia for a future that never came to pass.”
References:
Whiteley, S. and Rambarran, S. (2016) The Oxford handbook of music and virtuality. Oxford University Press.Vancouver
DOWNLOAD FLYER German translation by Thilo Schneider / Artwork by Ryo Koike