KiloWatts

In the wake of a singular bolt of lightning from beyond, KiloWatts has released his accumulated energy that has electrified ears and souls for over a decade. Utilizing an eco-friendly rechargeable solution, his chosen power-up stations reside in the minds of his listeners around the globe. It remains a revelation for electronic music to express the full depth of soul within the confines of the digital format, yet KiloWatts achieves this effortlessly. The music beckons the expression of divinity, with reverence, inside his careful and precise compositions. There, inside each song, lies a pristine seed that germinates and grows into veritable jungles of sound with hidden mathematical complexity. Shocking, to say the least. Whether experienced in headphones or on turbo sound systems, the music of KiloWatts is powerful and persistent. Close your eyes, open the theater of your mind, and watch the story unfold.

Jamie Watts grew up in Texas playing piano relentlessly. As the son of a computer engineer, he spent his off-time punching in BASIC code for games like “Oregon Trail”. He didn’t realize technology and music could be combined until late nights listening to Dallas-based radio show “The Grey Zone”. It was there that he found the sounds of The Orb, FSOL, Soul Oddity, Propellerheads, Coldcut, and The Chemical Brothers. Two turntables and a DOS-tracker later, he was translating his inspirations into his own compositions.

In the early 00s he found his new home in Philadelphia, immersed in its burgeoning psychedelic music scene, and performing at Gaian Mind festival and club nights. Working at a blistering pace, he navigated the rapidly changing music industry in order to share his music with the world. The digital revolution brought the ability to collaborate with anyone at any time. Within online communities of music producers, he cut his teeth on projects such as the time-sensitive “One Minute Massacre” compilations. During this time he met Peter Vanek in Belgium and embarked on their electro-acoustic project “KiloWatts & Vanek”, which showed just how much could be done without even being in the same studio.

As the dawn of interconnectivity grew, he engaged in a flurry of collaborative projects. Skeetaz, with breakbeat cohort Bil Bless brings hard-hitting digital glitched-out psychedelic funk. With Tanner Ross, an eerie style of dark techno was born under the name Voodeux for Dirtybird’s techno sublabel Mothership. Fellow Philadelphian MC Amagine delivers consciousness-driven motifs in their digital glitch-hop project called Super Galactic Expansive. His project titled Invisible Allies is a collaboration with Bluetech, exploring futuristic spacefunk, textural ambient, odd time signatures, complex harmonic developments, detailed digitalia and a sublime sense of the exotic.

His 2012 solo album ‘Acceptitude’ is described by To Eleven as “symphonic… with the sonic development and richness—the experimentalism even—of the classical composers.” KiloWatts has worked with some truly great minds, including Bluetech, Bil Bless, Tanner Ross, Peter Van Ewijk, and labels Native State Records, Mothership, Dependent, Harmonious Discord, and Thoughtless Music. Since his beginnings, he has toured extensively, headlining gigs at festivals like Decibel Festival in Seattle, Lab30 in Germany, MUTEK in Canada, and Strawberry Fields in Australia.