KAIRO

10/24/20262 min read

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— D J S

ISSUE 012 COVER STAR

KAIRO

DJ & Producer | Tokyo , Japan

"A great set is a city: you need slums and skylines. Too many DJs only build skylines."

Mixtape Streams

90M

Countries Toured

Festival Headliners

Years in the Underground

—THE STORY

Tokyo's underground architect, building cathedrals out of bass.

He still plays one unannounced basement set a month. "The day I stop," he says, "is the day the music stops meaning anything."

AIRO — born Ren Takahashi — learned his craft in the windowless basement clubs of Koenji, playing six-hour sets to crowds small enough to know by name. His breakthrough mixtape, "Concrete Gardens," was recorded live in a single take and uploaded without artwork or tracklist. It has since been streamed over ninety million times.

His productions treat techno as folk music: field recordings of Tokyo train stations, festival taiko drums, and his grandmother's shamisen all surface in tracks that festival main stages now close with.\

In conversation with Kairo

Rhythm that nobody composed. Tokyo is the greatest drummer alive — the Yamanote line has a swing most producers would kill for. I just press record.

FNM—YOUR TRACKS SAMPLE TRAIN STATIONS AND TAIKO DRUMS. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING FOR IN THE CITY?

FNM — YOU STILL PLAY SECRET BASEMENT SETS. WHY KEEP ONE FOOT UNDERGROUND?

The basement is where the music is honest. No phones, no VIP, no light show — if the track doesn't work, you find out immediately. Festivals tell you what people want. Basements tell you the truth.

FNM — WHAT DOES A KAIRO HEADLINE SET LOOK LIKE IN 2026?

Darker, slower, heavier. Everyone is sprinting at 140 BPM right now. I'm interested in what happens when 20,000 people are brave enough to move slowly together.

FNM — "CONCRETE GARDENS" WAS ONE TAKE, NO EDITS. WAS THAT DISCIPLINE OR STUBBORNNESS?

Respect. A live set is a conversation; editing it afterwards is like rewriting what your friend said. I wanted people to hear the night exactly as it happened, mistakes included.