Nina Kraviz

Nina Kraviz has never stuck to one lane: she’s meted out banging techno on the world’s biggest festival stages, released wildly experimental electronic music on her label, trip and then turned around to sing coolly melodic electro-pop. Born in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia, in 1987, Kraviz discovered house music on the radio and eventually made her way to Moscow, where her music career took off. She broke through to Western crowds in 2009, releasing a string of stripped-down club tracks on labels like Radio Slave’s Rekids, then made a bigger splash with 2011’s hypnotic “Ghetto Kraviz”, a sultry take on classic Chicago house. But with the launch of her own trip label in 2014, Kraviz really found her style: a provocative mix of techno, electro, breakbeats, vintage rave and mind-melting IDM. That fusion has come to define both her curatorial choices and her peak-time DJ sets. However, in 2021, she stepped out with a pair of sleek and unmistakably poppy singles, “This Time” and “Skyscrapers”, which announced the dawn of a new era in Kraviz’s unpredictable universe.