2003 ended too abruptly for me to get in a review or even a mention ofwhat has slowly become my favorite noise record of that year, thusnamed because it resists any academic sub-classification, remaininghighly listenable, though irreducible. The delay was due, ironically,to my inability to describe Royal Paintwithout making it sound entirely derivative. I could compare Mr. Kites,whoever this solitary and staunchly anti-technologian (no computers,keyboards, effects) abuser of arcane electronics may be, to Amps forChrist as he does incorporate his share of garbled folk and naïve popreferences. It would be easy, also, to write about the layered enginedrones that characterize several tracks, and while these are impressivein their assemblage, and charming by way of a persistentone-dimensionality, there is nothing to make Kites stand out against somany artists who've treated the same sounds to more elaborate, deeplyinvolved investigations. Kites' exploits the code of homemade ethics bydismissing obsolete technologies that even the most whitebread ofDIY-ers have grown to accept, but he does this without coming off likethe Jandek of his particular niche. Royal Paint includes someof the blind Jandekian resilience, but it's also a compelling listenthroughout, neither in spite nor because of its simplicity. Thenine-minute opener, "Staring into the Sun," works as a kind ofpurifying ritual, a screaming match between feedback generator andprickly static (Kites' weapons of choice), my ears as helplessmediators. Seven minutes in and the disc's ragged logic begins to takeshape; these fluctuations and skewed intervals trace the skeleton of apop song. The following three tracks, moving from a neo-pagan campfirestomp through a bit of faux-Celtic acoustic plucking with a few sheetsof white noise to cleanse the palette, only support my suspicions; thesongs offer the directness of pop with none of its easy rewards. Whilelabelmates Hair Police use traditional instruments to destroy the"song" from the inside-out, Kites works through his own bizarreprimitivism to reconstruct it. This is not noise for noise's sake. Thecomfortable or recognizable moments on Royal Paint do not allowfor a sarcastic tone or some humorous bent, dampening the truly painfulparts, of which there are many. The occasional sing-a-long bit andmelodic tinkering set up bizarre juxtapositions to make their shrillcounterparts seem more complex and hard to ignore. It might seem easyto dismiss Kites as just one more jaded punk cashing in on the homemaderenaissance, but Royal Paint gives this "simple" music a colorful and intimidating face.Read More
