After a couple of weeks spent touring Canada, New Zealand ‘party rocker’, K+Lab, will cross the Tasman for a run of Australian dates.

You’re coming to end of your Canadian tour... how has the trip been?
Canada has been insanely fun. They really know how to party and they're loving the beats! The first night I arrived I turned up at the wrong dude’s place and this guy let me in and made a bed for me. After he talked to his flatmates he realised I had the wrong flat number, then it just got awkward. 

The K+Lab definition of glitch hop is? For me, it's all about combining phat hip hop breaks with chunky, dirty, ‘grindy-slap-mama’ basslines. Your love of hip, funk, bass — do you have an older brother or parent responsible for your musical upbringing?
Yeah for sure. My older brother bought me a guitar when I was ten and encouraged me to keep at it. He was into a lot of trip hop, breakbeat and hip hop artists at the time such as DJ Shadow, Portishead, Massive Attack, Wise Guys, Unkle, Roni Size which got me into hip hop, breaks and drum & bass.  

New Zealand’s bass scene... is there a sense from the locals that NZ is beginning to build a rep among the mainstream for the quality of music that is being produced? We're definitely proud of the quality of artists especially within the bass music scene. We have some great hip hop artists that are doing well which is refreshing, I was getting worried when Dane Rumble was topping the charts.

On that tip... Wellington’s underground scene...
There's a pretty loyal drum & bass and dubstep following in Welly; anytime The Upbeats play, it's madness! We don't get a lot of glitch hop, but the Brainfeeder gigs seem to be growing which is wicked. Lorn was one of my favourite acts that came through last year. If you’d been around in the ‘60s or ‘70s, do you think you’d have been a musician? I would like to think I’d be a drummer in a funk band or be rocking the double bass in a jazz band. I can't live without making noise — technology just makes it easier to create whole tracks rather than be part of a band.

K+Lab will be joined by Blunt Instrument at Coniston Lane Saturday July 28.