Rave Memories: Kim Cosmik

Published on 2020-12-18 00:00:00 by Kim Cosmik

_Here we continue our exploration of those social experiences that are so precious to so many of us; often facilitated by amazing soundsystems, great company and inspiring curation.__In our new bi-monthly rave memories feature, members of the Loose Lips extended family highlight some of their favourite parties, festivals and raving memories of years past. We hope these personal insights will further excitement for times to come!Following our co-founder Medallion Mans memories of Kallida Festival, we have bona fide rave legend (who absolutely bodied the mix for our recent long-read/collaborative playlist Euphoric Apocalyptica), Kim Cosmik.
_I am very lucky to have experienced so many amazing parties and festivals since I started raving and Djing in 1989. Castlemorton was an amazing festival but there were also so many that were just as good every weekend before then and so many that most of it all blurs into one. There are stand out moments such as dancing in a wheatfield at Chipping Sodbury or driving our car on to the dancefloor at Ascot. That was after it had snowed in December, it was outdoors and everyone had puffers and moon boots on, there was ice on the conifers and it was like winter wonderland. Our car became the hang and chill area with different people jumping in and out all night. So much happened in that car!Easygroove and Lisa were smashing it that night playing the best Jungle Techno. Lisa was a hugely inspiratonal DJ to me back in the day, awesome!I had a lot of fun scouting venues with Spiral Tribe and we did parties in many amazing places like Battersea Power station and the Roundhouse, before it was renovated. The Roundhouse party was amazing and went on for two weeks over the Christmas holidays. I told Spirals that I knew Cisco Fereira (The Advent) and asked him to come and play, which he did and it was epic! We used to get a lot of special guests turning up after their own events too, such as Colin Dale and LTJ Bukem. I played after DJ Hype in the cab of a lorry converted to a deck booth once!There were so many amazing soundsystems like Circus Warp, Bedlam and Sweat, which was a small soundsystem. Once they did a party in Oxford and there was a constant stream of cars headlights driving into the field all night from what seemed like a never ending convoy. It was only a small soundsystem but there were about 20,000 people there by the morning! A lot of the time you just followed the convoy and then youd hear the music in the distance and just found your way to it. We often ended up at a different party to the one we were looking for and sometimes at someones local birthday party!Musically there was everything at the festivals from Hip Hop to Punk. No one really cared who was playing unless they were crap and then people would look up! Most of the time you could barely see the DJ. Every week there was an amazing venue to play at, The Lewisham Library was epic and we played there a few times. While walking around you would see some ravers reading the books that had been left behind!One of the craziest venues was playing in the Nazi bunkers under the Berlin wall which had only recently been taken down. It was said to be Hitlers bunker! We felt some heavy vibes in there but after we played it felt like we had excorcised the place, it was emotional!There are so many more stories I could tell up until the present day with so many amazing events but most stories are only for those who were there or already know. What happens at the rave stays at the rave!I am hugely grateful to Threads Radio for hosting my Hybrid Threads takeovers during this time which have been a lifeline for myself and the artists, by giving us a focus and keeping us connected. We have built a global community during this time that will remain strong long after this pandemic!