Diversion Records - Year Of The Kite

Artist Newsletter Sign-Up

Year Of The Kite

ARTIST BIO

The six members of Year of the Kite have been friends for years. "It's a bit like friends who realize they could be lovers," says singer Matt Walsh. "We suddenly realized that playing music together would be a good idea and it really worked. We should have done this years ago".

Their current body of work was written in their first eighteen months of playing together and explores themes such as aging, lost friends, and contrite vampires. Often described sonically as haunting and atmospheric, this may be the unintended consequence of the band's ancient church rehearsal space in the middle-of-nowhere. Walsh adds, "The church is vast and very cold but it sounds amazing. Bits of the album was recorded there too as we couldn't recreate the sounds in the studio".

Year of the Kite compose their songs with traditional instruments such as piano, strings, guitars and clarinet - but also have a keen interest in leaving room for sonic exploration with the addition of noise and non-traditional sounds. "We aim to create sense of isolation and space in our songs," says keyboardist Doug Cresswell. "But we also keep finding new sounds which we feel compelled to use to take the songs somewhere else".

Recently the band have been finalizing plans to release their debut album in 2018 and playing several U.K music festivals such as the Double Dot Bash and the Riverside Festival. Cresswell adds, "We've enjoyed bringing our tunes to the festival crowd. It is sometimes a challenge to play our full sound live - but we can make a real racket when we put our minds to it".

MEMBERS

Matt Walsh - guitar, lap steel, vocals

Doug Cresswell - keys, synths, theremin, samosatron

Rachel Walsh - violin

Mohamed Sheikh - bass

Kate Day - clarinet

Matt Wood - drums, guitar, vocals