Ashe Kilbourne is loving “uncomfortably empty” soundscapes. The hardcore queen, who’s been a staple of New York’s underground for years, gives her signature industrial bend this sense of restraint on the seven-track album If Not to Give a Fantasy. Out on her own label Hammerhead Records, Kilbourne’s latest project interrogates listeners’ relationships to the artists they love, encouraging a more spiritual connection that transcends quick hit, modern club music.
Whether it’s the solemn bird song of “Loon Call” that rattles spontaneously or the acidic “Double BBL” that oscillates between regular and double time with a mind of its own, Kilbourne pushes deeper with this material and strives for intimate experiences on the dancefloor. “I’m really interested in finding a sound that is my own and exists outside of essentially commercial ways of understanding music and divisions within it,” she says.
Below for PAPER, Kilbourne chats with author and personal friend Hannah Baer about dance music, subculture and the "sexy, psychedelic" possibilities of hardcore.
As we're catching up today, you're putting new speakers in your car and it made me curious: what music have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been listening heavy to the 2025 soca season. It’s exciting having new music out every week, it reminds me of high school when I knew the release dates of bands. I’ve also been listening to 2000s Italian hardcore, I love how trancey the melodies are.
Wow, I bet the two sound really good together, or at least complementary. I want to hear about your new album and the sonic palette you drew from this time around.
They sound heavenly together. My last release I was a little more techno-pilled. I was really moved by the experiences — many of which we’ve shared — in non-hardcore environments, dancing to music that was way slower and more restrained than what I make or play. I wanted to transmute that into hardcore. I am still interested in this conversation, but I’m also feeling much more expansive in what I’m drawing on.
Yes, totally. I feel like one thing I really associate with you is a kind of disciplined relationship to the legacy of the genre of hardcore. And I'm curious what that's like in a music landscape that can feel very "flavor of the month."
There’s obviously lots of influence from industrial hardcore of the last 20 years, but I also tried capturing some of the energy I used to feel working on Philly and Jersey club tracks when I first started making music in 2011, and playing with real minimal soundscapes — like uncomfortably empty.
I’m such a nerd for [the history of hardcore], but I feel like I’ve horseshoed a bit. This is the least interested I’ve been in genre — at least for my own production — in a long time. I care deeply about my influences, but I’m really interested in finding a sound that is my own and exists outside of essentially commercial ways of understanding music and divisions within it.
You and I were chatting recently a lot about Nosferatu and how The Witch is totally beyond, and I reckon while Nosferatu is a beautiful movie, its power is restricted in that it is a tribute to previous incredible works of art that the director loves.
Yes, the anxiety of influence.
So it’s a beautiful piece of art that honors his influences, yet it doesn’t necessarily transcend or reinterpret them.
It sounds like you feel freer to fuck with your influences at this point in your trajectory than maybe you felt on earlier records. I'm thinking about NJ Terror, which was the first EP of yours that I really listened to. And I got so obsessed before we even knew each other.
Aw, definitely. I feel like around NJ Terror I started becoming really interested in articulating something grounded in history. It was my second release on a hardcore label, and I think I wanted to prove to myself and others that I could make music like the records that influenced me.
You've paid your dues in that regard, at least that’s my sense. One thing we've talked about over the years is the audience around hardcore music in the US versus other places. You tour a lot internationally and in countries with much larger hardcore scenes than New York. I'm curious what your sense is of the culture around hardcore in the US right now?
It’s exploding in a way it hasn’t in years. Ten years ago I felt like I knew practically every person my age who DJ’d or was obsessed with hardcore in NYC. Now there are so many events and collectives I’m always learning about and meeting new heads, most of whom are younger than me, which makes me think the scene will continue to grow.
I was going to ask something about electronic music and queer culture in NYC.
I was about to say something about hardcore being really gay here.
Like, the dance music subculture most associated with elevated taste and thoughtfulness is queer in NYC. How does that relate to hardcore?
US hardcore is special compared to how straight hardcore is in the Netherlands and most of Europe. A lot of the people moving the scene here, playing shows, producing music, putting on parties, are gay or trans. It’s funny because the scene is LGBT’d out, but I don't think hardcore and gabber are perceived as part of an "elevated taste" set. Techno folds very neatly right now into fashion, celebrity, hedonism, and I appreciate that hardcore can't fit as cleanly. There’s something confrontational and future-facing about that sound that demands more than just casual consumption. But I do believe it is beautiful, sensuous music that deserves reverence and analysis.
I love that. And yes, I feel the same way about hardcore — it’s like a bit anti-assimilation feeling, especially in the US. Which is why it's cool to imagine it being kind of white bread in the EU. I'm also curious what it's like to be in a straight scene over in the EU, and if it's fun in a way?
Being in EU hardcore feels funny. Most of my friends in NYC are dolls or gay, and it's way rarer to see visibly queer or trans people at the big hardcore events. Once I was playing a Dutch hardcore show, very stereotypical gabber crowd — shaved head, toned, tall, shirtless men in track pants dancing hakken — and I was spiraling next to these guys like, "Damn, I am playing the parties I dreamed of, but I am alone as a trans or queer person." I was in this goofy pity party when one of the gabber boys grabs another's head from the back, pulls him in and starts tonguing him down. It was a good reminder we're everywhere.
[Laughs] We're literally everywhere, it's true. Can you say something about your recurring party Hammerhead. I'm curious to hear what you envisioned for it initially and how you think about staking out a space in IRL for the music?
Hammerhead has been my lil baby for the last two years. I've thrown six parties in New York plus a couple of out-of-town showcases and released three albums. The concept is hardcore techno on a really loud system with long sets from people who've really shaped the genre here and globally. It's not a queer party, but it leans that way. The sets are always very long. My goal is three hours per artist, so they can say all they need to say. I live for all kinds of hardcore, but with Hammerhead I wanted to emphasize something sexy and psychedelic about the genre.
I've found them to be so intimate and also diverse — not in the college admissions sense, but like–
Intimate is so the vibe. Playing at an 80,000-person hardcore festival is the polar opposite of intimate, and that's the setting that dominates people's idea about the genre, so I wanted to throw a party that felt deeply cozy and explorational.
Yeah, it’s actually a really beautiful mix of people I would never see out at a typical techno party, plus all of my deep nightlife loves. Regarding queerness, at the last Hammerhead, I was dancing with Lex, and she was like, "You should write a think piece for Rave Forum about Hammerhead," and I was like, "Would it be about how Hammerhead is post-woke?" Which was a joke. But I do think there is a way that the queerness in the space feels subtle and kind of like past a flat "idpol" or identitarianism.
The scene is growing supplely right now, and I don't feel the need to cordon it off into gay or straight. It's for the freaks and that means there should be a healthy presence anyways. It's not casual, it's for people who deeply want extreme sound and catharsis from a very special kind of music.
Do you have goals or wishes for what happens with the party next?
I have more artists I want to invite, both within and outside the US. More legends, more newcomers. My dream is to make it into an all-Sunday affair so it can get really twisted — afters zombie, but being constantly shocked back into consciousness. I think a dark room would be great.
Yes to all, I love this buffet. I know all-day Sunday feels like a special vibe in this time. Will you tell me some about your process around production? I'm curious to hear about your workflow and how it's evolved, especially with the new album.
I made a lot of kick drums. In hardcore, you're not allowed to copy, so you gotta make 'em all yourself and, usually, most sound really bad. I tried to use more hardware, not because it sounds better but just to push myself into new habits — again, allowing for minimalism and sitting in the discomfort of using fewer elements in a song. Trading loudness for dynamics. Except in “Double BBL,” that is very maximal style.
Will you tell me about the Betty Boop edit for “Double BBL”? That track goes so hard.
I love my BBL’s and this track is a tribute to the procedure — pumping up the sound, making the kick drum juicier and juicier. In the clip, Betty goes to hell, which is this little factory cranking out new devils — kind of BBL clinic vibes.
I live for all kinds of hardcore, but with Hammerhead I wanted to emphasize something sexy and psychedelic about the genre.
That’s so cool. Betty is very BBL energy. What’s next on your horizon after this record drops?
I have a couple of new songs that I wrote once the album was done. It felt so good to start something new. I have a couple of tracks with Baseck that I think are really strong and want to finish — so many collabs I’m hyped on. I’ve also spent the past six months working on audio for my friend Maxi’s video game Babysteps, which is coming out later this year. Learning how game composition and audio works has been so stimulating. I finally want to rescore The Matrix — I told you I was going to do that in 2020 and it’s time to get to it.
You’re always doing so much, I really admire it.
Literal same.
Lastly, is there anything you would say to readers who want to get into hard styles and don’t know where to start?
Next time you’re in a car at night, play Ophidian – Butterfly VIP as loud as you can and drive as fast as you can. Watch old party footage. Come to Hammerhead, obvi. This music is everything — it’s what I love and can’t stop loving.
Photography: Brandon Waard
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