|
Recent star of the Witnness Rising tour in Ireland, David Kitt talked to witnness.com about his festival life and the reaction to his new album 'The Big Romance'.
Are you looking forward to playing tonight?
Yes, really I am. I was here for a bit last night and I had a good time - I think too much of a good time to be honest! I'm a bit nervous because there seems to be an awful lot of expectations about the show and I am up against The Avalanches so that could take away from it. Its mad because all my mates have been asking me for tickets to that they can come and see The Avalanches. Cheers chaps!
Your album has really done well and not just in Ireland.
Yeah, things are going really well in London especially. We started off in the Borderline playing to 15 people and then it was 100 and then last Friday, we were sold out. Its really good to see it happening like that. We're not releasing any singles from 'The Big Romance' but people are finding out about it anyway.
You were here last year - do you like festivals?
I do. I loved Feile, it was where I grew up and did all the things you do when you grow up and its a great chance to see a load of bands in one weekend.
IMRO.ie - October 2001
David Kitt's Big Romance
Justin Dowling
The classic tale of the singer-songwriter commonly begins in a place of comforting solitude, a lone, contemplative setting in which one is at ease to experiment, create and perfect the musical art of song. With David Kitt, the story too begins here but his is a talent at once immediate and instantly captivating that has seen him graduate from the status of bedroom recording artist to the major label darling in a relatively short period of time. His first offering 'Small Moments', released at the close of summer 2000, was a mini-album of seven songs crafted in their entirety in the bedroom environment, the resultant intimacy of which generated such a level of warmth so as to provide the perfect soundtrack for the long winter months ahead. The first album 'proper', 'The Big Romance' followed less than a year later. Instantly engaging, it entices the listener to undertake an enchanting ramble into a world that blends hypnotic acoustic melodies, mellifluent instrumentation with composite hip-hop beats. The intriguing mélange of sound that makes up the album has certainly succeeded in enamouring much of the record buying public and it has now achieved gold status in Ireland. Kitt's current fortune is largely a product of 'word of mouth' excitement generated by a rigorous working of the live gig circuit and by simply letting the music speak for itself.
I meet Kitt in an animated Dublin café on an otherwise lazy Tuesday afternoon and although visibly tired from a successful weekend residency in Whelan's, his 'sort of homecoming' if you will and also from many promotional commitments, he is an immediately amiable individual willing at once to converse about his 'Big Romance', his passion that is his music.
'It's quite tiring at the moment' he says in response to how he feels regarding the explosion of attention surrounding him following on from the release of 'The Big Romance'. 'It's such a shock to the system where you haven't any time to yourself and for the people that you most want to spend time with, on a positive note, the gigs over the weekend I felt were an indication that the crowd was so totally in tune with what I was doing and it was just the best of both worlds, there was a crowd that were really up for having a good time but also were on the same wavelength musically so that was really encouraging, so it's nice' he shrugs, 'I mean it's nice, it's just a matter of getting used to the lifestyle, actually from what everyone is saying it's just going to get worse!'
To this author, Kitt's appeal lies in an experimental originality from which emerges a collection of sounds and melodies that produce music of an all-embracing quality. To meet this end, I curiously probe him regarding his early musical ventures which led him today becoming the accomplished artist that he is today.
'Ah! my early musical ventures', he stalls to put out a cigarette and having contemplated a little offers 'to be honest, words I never considered my strong point like y'know?' I nod affirmatively and he continues, 'I was always just playing music and I was always just able to write melodies over a guitar, I always felt that if you have a seed for something you should capture it and make sure you don't forget what it is and so that even from an early age I'd have really random words that didn't necessarily mean anything over the top but were just a vehicle for a melody'
Amongst the unique qualities attached to Kitt's sound are the pounding drum machine rhythms that quite often punctuate his quiet acoustic arrangements. 'From the age of about 18 when I was getting more and more into hip-hop, I really wanted a sampler, I really wanted to kinda use beats and a lot of what I would be writing in my head I would always be tapping out some rhythm', he says before breaking off to demonstrate by tapping out a rhythm with his feet. 'I think the main kind of jump was between the ages of 19, 20 where the stuff I was writing was a lot heavier and a lot darker and a lot more melancholy, it wasn't doing me a lot of good and I reached the point where I felt that if I'm playing gigs again and again, I had to write stuff that I could sing again and again' And now? 'In terms of the way the songs end up getting done now is just a result of years of listening to music and loads of different types of music and everything just goes into the filter and comes out the other end in some weird way!'
The attention surrounding Kitt all started with the release of 'Small Moments'. A remarkable record not only because of the quality of the seven songs that make up its content but also due to the methods employed in its creation which saw the project fulfilled in its entirety by quietly recording at night while simultaneously completing a postgraduate course in Music Technology at Trinity College during the day, a noteworthy level of commitment which in itself is admirable and inspiring.
'It was just a really good time', he considers when looking back on it all, 'it's just a document you know? I just like that idea that you record an album in a time and it reflects that time and it reflects your level of development and your level of ability at the time'. As if though forecast by fate, the album found a home on that great guardian of independent music, Rough Trade records. Kitt flashes a large grin when I point this out, 'they have a way of releasing records which I thought suited that record and it was like a total dream come true, it's still quite an unreal thing to pick up my record and go like', he makes a pointing gesture towards his palm, 'Rough Trade'.
If 'Small Moments' was in a sense 'small' and low-key, 'The Big Romance' is where the picture gets a lot bigger. Continuing the trend of association with reputable labels, the album was released on Blanco Y Negro, a division of Warner Brother music.
The album backed with the single release of a re-recorded version of 'Song From Hope Street (Brooklyn NY)', a live favourite for many, and also featuring the forthcoming second single 'You Know What I Want To Know', it takes Kitt's sound out of the bedroom to the professional recording studio, was this a difficult transition?
'It was very difficult' he acknowledges, 'well first it was really exciting because you're out of the house and it's almost like going to a day job!'. However, the completion of the album was not without its complications as he reveals. 'the record was totally with me everyday for a year and a half, my headspace was totally filled with that project and it took over to a ridiculous degree at times but y'know when I was finished it was a huge relief because the last hurdle was the hardest to get over, y'know just making sense of the record 'cus the album was finished but it had totally different versions of 'Hope Street' and 'You Know What I Want To Know', it didn't have 'Into The Breeze', 'Private Dance' or 'You In The City', it was a totally different record and it didn't make sense as a record at all!'. Following consultations with Geoff Travis, the mastermind behind the Rough Trade label, Kitt decided to re-record 'Hope Street' and 'You Know What I Want To Know' and drop some songs in favour of others and contends that the final result is largely due to a desire to get the most out of the environment he was in, 'I mean you're in a studio where you've got a lot of resources that will help you make the record that you really did want to make in the first place and I do feel that I kinda made that record now, I think every song is pretty much well represented'
I make suggestions that from the title and lyrics on the album and that through creating music, he comes to appreciate all manner of things in life far better. 'I certainly did' he replies hesitantly, 'when you have time to indulge in music and indulge in creation, it's great, I mean there is a romantic side to that whole being alone and just creating and sparking things but I just haven't had that opportunity for a while, it's a very different time now' referring obviously to time constraints brought about by the success of the record. 'The only thing I get out of it nowadays is taking photographs because that's just something that I can manage to fit into my schedule, my photographs are totally immediate and you get some of that kick out of them as you get out of writing songs'.
Three other personalities helped to shape and mould 'The Big Romance'. Ken McHugh co-produced, engineered and assisted in the programming of the record and with him Kitt was able to record what he calls his 'dream song', 'You In The City', 'that song for me was in a way the closest I've dreamed of doing with a song, to be able to create such changes in atmosphere within a 6,7 minute song is kinda what I've always really hoped to be able to do and that was just because the level of communication between myself and Ken was so high at that stage'. Kitt without hesitation always sings the praises of Diarmuid MacDiarmada who played clarinet and saxophone on the album and in fact partly dedicates the album to him in honour of his 'genius', 'he could contribute positively to any musical project, his things are totally unobtrusive but they are totally intriguing at the same time and totally beautiful, they always totally lift what's going on'. Paul Smyth's outstanding contribution on the album was the piano on 'Strange Light In The Evening' which Kitt declares to be 'phenomenal, it's just another level of piano playing that I would never be capable of!'
All these musical influences are fed into Kitt's musical filter and together make 'The Big Romance' what it is, a sublime musical delicacy that thankfully one can consume again and again.
For the foreseeable future Kitt's plans are bound up with promoting the record particularly after its UK release, something which he remarkably takes in his stride, 'it's a necessary thing at this stage and you have to get it out there and y'know hopefully get the record to as many people as possible'. A short tour of the UK and Ireland is planned as well as confirmed festival appearances, most notably the Witness Festival, all of which will keep Kitt and his music in the public domain for quite a while yet. As a final question I venture to ask him about how he heard of IMRO and how he regards the organisation as a whole?
'I suppose it was very early on when I filled out my song registration forms and live music forms but I think it's great that way, that there is an organisation that collects for people who don't have resources like a record or a publishing company and people have someone looking out for them, it's important that songwriting is respected that way and I think it's obviously a positive thing'.
With that he presses his hands against the table and picks himself up to depart. We exchange pleasantries and he is gone to attend another promotional obligation in his busy schedule. With 'You Know What I Want To Know' on the verge of release and with the live dates to fulfil, the advice of those around Kitt that the attention cast upon him will get worse will probably turn out to be true but on the flipside that can only be because the music is just getting better and better.
We thought that David Kitt was a Next Big Thing. Now, we think he may even be better than that. Unwrapping the Kitt Kat: Leagues.
David Kitt hasn't engaged in many interviews as of yet, but you can sense his trepidation at the prospect of endless hours of talkingS about him. See, Kittser is a quiet chap and would rather talk music than work on his pop personality. That said, he is a modern pop-kid in the best possible sense, possessing too much romance for him not to soar into the hearts and minds of many, many music lovers of a similar daydreaming disposition. He won't, however, be taking his cue from the Mikey Graham or Sinead O'Connor school of spin; instead he invites us into the current fulcrum of his music world in downtown Dublin's Pulse recording studios.
As the lusty advances of the music industry close in on Kitt and his cachet of fresh, folky pop tunes and soft-focus electronics, this is where'll you find him, entrenched intensely in the recording of his second album and his first for the Blanco y Negro label. He isn't wasting any time. Since first strolling by our window with a headful of mini-disc loops, murmuring pastoral pop songs and tentative hip-hop beats, he has steadily graduated through the ranks of Dublin's increasingly kinetic independent scene. Through a series of support slots with the likes of Joan Of Arse, Jubilee Allstars and The Frames, not to mention a few DJ sets along the way, Kitt slowly seduced the chattering din of the Whelan's barflies, and duly captured their hushed, undivided attention.
There have been some prime performances along the way, notably supporting Salako and living up to his snowballing reputation with song after song of beguiling sensuous and uplifting charm. And for the finale, he introduced his nine-year-old brother, Robbie, onstage for a duet on the sweet caressing "Another Love Song"; tears welled in the eyes of the most hardened indie cynics. The Kitt brothers pulled it off again, at the Olympia Theatre some weeks later, leaving headline act Beth Orton with something to follow. And now, with his ensemble of clarinet, organ, electronic drums and xylophone, David Kitt packs out his own shows. And as these shows testify, David Kitt is no bleeding heart troubadour or David Gray disciple, but rather an artist with an ever-spreading canvas to explore. "I'd like to be seen as someone who makes electronic music as much as acoustic music. It's not that I feel like I need to be complimented for it, it's because if people don't see beyond a song on an acoustic guitar they lug you in with a certain part of their record collection."
Of course, while David buries his head in the lush possibilities of his first real studio album, there is a rather precious introduction coming your way in the shape of an eight song home-recorded album entitled "Small Moments", released via Rough Trade. The album features such joys from his sets as "Step Outside In The Morning Light", "Sound Fades With Distance" and the aforementioned "Another Love Song" complete with Robbie Kitt cooing like a cool choirboy.
"A lot of it was recorded late at night. There were other people living in the house, so it was all done quite quietly. You can tell that from a lot of the vocals, as a lot of them are almost whispered. It's very much linked to my bedroom at a time when I didn't have a record deal and didn't really know if I would have one or not. It wasn't really recorded for release. When I came to actually signing a deal, I started to feel very strongly about the recording, so I made sure that whatever company I went with would put out those songs first."
"Small Moments" is released on Rough Trade in late-July/early August. Other available David Kitt recordings include "Song From Hope St. (Brooklyn, NY)" on the "Come On Up To The House EP" on Independent Recordings and ""Irma Vep" on a split single with Mr. Deasey Mooneye on the Road Relish Singles Club. Both releases are currently available in Road Records, Fade St, Dublin 2. |
