Miss Kittin & The Hacker

Miss Kittin’s (real name: Caroline Herve) interest in music was spurred by her parents’ record collections, which covered everything from disco to funk to classical to jazz. The Grenoble, France, native found herself attracted to the rave scene of the early ’90s, and within three years of becoming involved, she started performing her own DJ sets. A major break came for the producer/DJ when she received bookings for the Dragon Ball events in Southern France. In 1996, she moved to Geneva, Switzerland, and joined the Mental Groove Records posse. A trio of early productions on various-artists compilations were scattered throughout 1996 and 1997. By 1998, she fell in with the International Deejay Gigolos camp, debuting on that label with the Champagne! EP. With the Hacker, Miss Kittin released First Album in 2000, which combined clubby production work with new wave pop sensibilities. Kittin and Hacker’s haughty, somewhat hokey single “Frank Sinatra” caught fire with the burgeoning electroclash crowd, and her deadpan vocals similarly livened up Felix da Housecat’s 2002 single “Silver Screen Shower Scene,” as well as Golden Boy’s Or LP that same year. With her rep cemented, Kittin dropped the techno-themed On the Road, designed to show off her impressive DJ skills to those enamored only of her vocals. The March 2003 Emperor Norton release Radio Caroline did more of the same, moving Miss Kittin out of the electroclash pigeonhole and toward a spot holding lots of love for her first love, which was always spinning. In between two more studio albums — 2004′s I Com and 2008′s Batbox — she released another pair of mix albums: Live at Sonar and A Bugged Out Mix. A second collaborative effort with the Hacker, titled Two, arrived in 2009 on Kittin’s label Nobody’s Bizzness. The solo album Calling from the Stars followed in 2013 and featured a cover version of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” ~ Andy Kellman