Kites - Royal Paint with the Metallic Gardener from the United States Helped into an Open Field by Women and Children.

Load Records

Reviewed by Jeff Schneider

Kites; why am I reviewing this? Simply because “It was sent it in a spirit of sharing” and the maker of this music says this record “was very important to me when I made it, and now it is important to me.” The title uses the method developed by William S. Burroughs while in Manhattan; the cut up or maybe just the “glance around” to save paper. I like that. I have to say I go to a ton of shows, all around, been in Fort Thunder, been in many a loft, many an artists loft. Some lofts in Manhattan even… I always wonder, what do the owners of all this shit do with all this shit? All the paint cans, reams of cloth, cutters, bowls, cracked cymbals, makeshift drum sets, bongs, gongs, tubes, plants, GI Joes, posters, figures, dada memorabilia, mannequins, VCRs, VCR head cleaner (well I do know what that is for), paste, rags, bags, sacks, scarves, masks, noise manipulators, chopsticks, woks, crayons, and lastly mattresses.

Noise music. A noise master once told me “Noise is the true sound of Love” and it can be… On this record there are moods, mood swings, repression of greater acts that could have more serious social consequences, maybe even a death or two. I feel some Love here, because honestly I know half the people thanked in its liner notes: Wolf Eyes, Tom, Collin, Drain, Jessica Rylan, Laura and Ben, Dom, Deerhoof… So Kites are nice I think it is safe to assume or these people would not be on there. The second feeling of Love is musical, thus the “true sound of Love”. I am not sure what exactly is being said here; maybe what is being said is subtle or not said at all, just happening.

What happens on the first track (Staring Into the Sun) is noise… I can’t add too much to that - textures, layers, swings, segues, transformations, morph. It is sober. The second track (Changlings) is real neat, clapping and drumstick clicking with double vocal harmonies, a new mood. A poetic burst, I can’t tell if this was an off the cuff inspiration or maybe it was written at another time, valued, and used here? I can’t tell. Track 3 (Suppress Control, Reduce Destroy) is a sea of sand noise screaming, probably the last noises in the head of some dead soldier in Iraq yesterday, an infantryman probably. Next track 4 (Cry For the Death of a Crazy Man) is an acoustic guitar song, much like a song from Unicorn by T Rex but without the vocals. Track 8 (Call Out Your Real Name) is like a Leviathan. This track conflicts with the artwork, which is of children on the inside and out (and mail-order the comics by the way). It zones into an auto-hypnotic state far from home where Bruce Springsteen is shelved and resting; this is something else.

My two complaints… First, is that the musician(s) refer to the music on this platter as a “project”. Second, in the song “Changlings” there are lyrics that go “We mark the days in the cold, bloody matter consuming us whole, where earth is piled in shade, shuddering damage to cross and fade, hallways and doorways, a place down the street, canisters boxes a roaming fleet.” See the word shade, unlike every other lyric for some reason is sung with an English accent… or that Billy Joe from Green Day accent (whatever that one is). I wish that was not so. The rest of the vocals and the lyrics are really radical, amazing and exude a greatness of taste. The record is so interesting I can forgive the hooligan-Bobbie-bloke-pimp word, one word, and entertain the possibility that it was an artistic injection for some reason I am not aware.

Overall I enjoyed this experience, an experience I am new at. Please forgive this review; I did my best from the outside. Tell me more about it, I want to know what I missed; I am interested. Buy it. I am glad to know that there are things being said in other musicological languages now and that the vocabulary is growing. The new semantics allow for all this to be said on one piece of wax in a very personal way. Thanks for sharing this Kites (C.F.).

Listen: Big Ponytail