Langston Kelly Human DJ
Langston Kelly Human DJ is a sonomancer who makes soundtracks for life. The aim is to make magical experiences with music whereby listeners can explore the space between their inner and outer worlds and merge the two. As the former frontman for the funk band Starship Mantis and his current Fantastic Adventures with Rhetorical Artz, LKHD has the skills to move both your body and your mind.
A natural traveler with a mind for experimentation, LKHD values improvisation, initially styling himself the “all-improv, DJ-style one man band.” Indeed, all of his performances and albums between 2017 and 2019 were entirely improvised. While improvisation still plays a fundamental role in his performance and creative process, LKHD is now stretching his composition and production skills via weekly releases which showcase his range and flexibility with an emphasis on electronic, synthwave music.
Extended Bio
Langston has performed for a decade with various bands most notably: The Afro Yaqui Music Collective, El Foukr R'Assembly, and Starship Mantis. He toured Algeria with El Foukr in 2016 and performed throughout the eastern US and Canada with Starship Mantis beginning the same year. Starship Mantis was the first band for which Mr. Kelly was the front man performing on both vocals and horns, and composing some of the tunes. By the time the band was retired in 2020, Starship Mantis released 2 albums the second of which, Black Hole Radio AM/FM, features the first professional recording of one of Langston’s orchestrations.
In the midst of forming and touring with bands, Langston was also traveling and performing as LKHD, the all-improv DJ-style one man band. Under this moniker he released 4 albums. LKHD was originally, at least in part, a response to a lacking prevalence of well thought out, yet fully improvised music in the industry. With his third album “Stop Being Dead”, he accomplished his goal of creating a cohesive album with tracks that seem to have been prepared and yet were fully improvised and unedited. With his 4th album “Sunset” he achieved his goal of recording a fully improvised album in one take. Since then, Langston has removed the limitation of “all-improv” from his LKHD work in order to develop his composition and production skills.