Kairos - "For Mankind"

Kairos is Nick Ingvoldstad, a musician from Blacksburg, VA formerly known as Ishkabum. He plays a variety of instruments but mostly uses his computer to craft electronic and dubstep/glitch songs. Kairos comes from the ancient Greek word meaning, “the supreme moment”. 




He’s currently working on finishing several releases including a dubstep/glitchhop LP tentatively titled Tycho Magnetic Anomaly, a darkly ambient collection of songs, and an album with Virginia musician Alex Burner aka AB200 .

Kairos recently finished, “For Mankind” a techno-informed track that samples Neil Armstrong and is also working on what he calls his “Saganstepic,” a concept album in which he sets a full chapter of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot audiobook to music that he wrote.

He’s clearly got his hands full and is developing a thing for outer space, which after listening to “For Mankind” will strike no one as a bad thing. 

"For Mankind" starts off with echoey bass and drums over aeronautic radio chatter. As a layer of fast paced, trance-like synths comes in, it becomes clear that the radio samples are from astronauts. It’s at this point that the main beat drops—it sounds a bit like something from The Knife but dubbier—and the song completely lifts off.



There’s something otherworldly to “For Mankind”. The tones feel cold and sterile, like outer space. The synths are alien or even robotic. The astronaut samples are faint and obscured by computerized tones, which grow in intensity, like an ever-expanding dark void threatening to swallow the last tiny speck of humanity. But just when it seems that “For Mankind” lacks any traces of man, a voice clearer than before, rings out, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 


For Mankind by [Kairos]