Ten years of London-based industrial-techno label method, founded 2016 by Lee Adams as the recorded-document parallel to the KAOS London events programme he had already been running for over a decade.
Khemia Records is the London-based independent label founded in 2016 by Lee Adams, the multi-media artist, curator, DJ (working under the name Choronzon) and twenty-year KAOS London resident. The label's founding moment routes through Adams' meeting with Pier di Sortie (owner of Blackwater Records, recently relocated from Rome to London): Pier attended several KAOS parties, became friends with Adams, and suggested they create a new label connected with the KAOS programming. Adams had been thinking along similar lines but lacked the practical knowledge of the record industry to start; Pier's experience provided the structure for the label's establishment. The Bureau notes the founding moment as typical of the contemporary European industrial-techno scene's recorded-document network, with longstanding DJ and events methods consolidating into label-defining releases through the mid-2010s scene's consolidating moment.
The catalogue's method opened with the inaugural Vernal Equinox Edition (K001), featuring In Aeternam Vale on the "solar side" and Bronze Teeth on the "lunar" flipside. The first cycle of split EPs continued this seasonal ordering principle, released according to the Winter / Summer Solstice and the Autumn / Spring Equinox; the second cycle related to the four stages of the alchemical process (Albedo the whitening, Citrinitas the yellowing, Rubedo the reddening, and Nigredo the blackening). The method's naming and ordering principle is structurally consistent with Adams' Choronzon and occult-electronics position; the catalogue's name itself routes through "khemia", the alchemical root of "chemistry".
The roster across the catalogue's period extends across the contemporary industrial-techno and hard-techno structure. Orphx (the Canadian Richard Oddie + Christina Sealey duo, industrial-techno method from the early 1990s onward) constitutes one of the label's continuing roster anchors; I Hate Models, Blind Delon, DJ Varsovie, Sarin, Schwefelgelb, Codex Empire, Years Of Denial, Zanias, Rrose and adjacent constitute the contemporary method roster; Bronze Teeth, Choronzon (Adams' own DJ alias), Huren, Sob Story, HIV+, Prophän, L-Shape and adjacent extend the cataloguing into the harder experimental-techno and EBM method. Adams designs cover artwork for the releases himself (the Prophän K018 LP, DJ Varsovie K016, L-Shape K020 and adjacent), constituting the label's visual identity as position.
Khemia's method extends beyond the recorded-document structure into scene-defining release. The Ambivalen+ A/V listening events series at The Ace Hotel, The Institute of Light, and The Yard Theatre operate as absorbing listening, extensions of the label's method; the parallel KAOS London events programme constitutes Adams' twenty-year scene-defining release. The historicisation of the method is significant: the entire Khemia vinyl catalogue has been acquired by the British Library, and an archive of images from resident photographer Zbigniew Tomasz Kotkiewicz has been acquired by the Bishopsgate Institute. The Bureau notes the British Library acquisition as consequential beyond the catalogue's individual position; it constitutes one of the more legible moments at which a contemporary independent industrial-techno catalogue has been formally accessioned into the UK cultural-archival structure while still active.
The pandemic-era method shifted considerably: Adams spent extended time in Athens (originally a 10-day visit in March 2020, extending into a 14+ month stay through the pandemic period), with photography and documentation method extending across Athens, Tunis, Palermo, London, Nablus, Hydra, Aperathou and Koufonissia. Khemia's method has accordingly extended toward digital platforms alongside the continuing vinyl-focus position; the cataloguing has diversified from the initial split-EP cycles into single-artist EPs, V/A compilations and full albums. The label remains active in 2026 with continuing release programme. The Bureau's view is that Khemia operates as the contemporary London-based industrial-techno label method, distinct from the Berlin contemporary scene's network (Ostgut Ton centrally Berghain-affiliated, A+W European dark-electronic and industrial-techno crossover, BITE Phase Fatale's 2018 harder industrial techno-specific) and constituted through Adams' twenty-year KAOS London scene-defining release.