I’ll admit it. I had never heard post-rock band Kyte before, but I’ll blame that on location more than anything else. Now that I’ve had the fine opportunity to review their upcoming album, Dead Waves, I’m just as curious to delve into their back catalog and discover even more of their ambiguous beauty. This four-piece band hailing from Leicestershire delivers an addictive dose of lush sounds and atmospheric pop that will leave you craving more.

Needless to say, Dead Waves isn’t the type of album you’d put on before hitting the town for a wild night out, although it certainly will come in handy if you’re feeling delicate the following the morning. Still, the album can also be enjoyed even if you’re not wallowing in post-hangover stooper.

The band have been compared to Sigur Ros and Snow Patrol for their sweeping, broad-ranging sounds and pure melodies, but there also tends to be a major parallel to fellow English band Athlete, especially with “You’re Alone Tonight” and “Designed For Damage”, which leans heavily on electro-pop and melodic bliss.

The twelve-song album may seem like a lengthy amount to the iTunes generation, yet the infectious pop and smooth mellowness ebbs and flows throughout the LP gives an impression you’re surfing upon an ocean with steady waves, rather than dead ones as the album title suggests.
As the album progresses, another striking aspect that the band does so seemingly well is balance earnest lyrics against a rising backdrop of percussion and building guitars. This kind of sober intensity is heard through standout tracks “Like She Said” and “Each Life Critical.”

Kyte is the type of band that can draw the most casual listener in with the first song and make them a mega fan by the end of the album. Or at least that’s what seems to have happened with me anyway. Immediately following the band’s 7 ½ minute closer and album title Dead Waves, I had the strong urge of listening to the album all over again. I have a feeling I’m not the only who will pine for another round of listening.

Kyte’s Dead Waves is released on KIDS on 19th April 2010 on CD and Download.

It’s been two years since I first introduced Kyte from Leicester. Since then they’ve slowly built up a fan base, played huge shows in Japan and gained praise from the NME (“Kyte will steal your heart”).

So, when I got through the announcement that they’ll be releasing their debut full-length album, Dead Waves, on 19 April through KIDS Records; the label that launched The Wombats, The Whip and Band of Horses, frankly I almost had a heart attack. And this track is a gorgeous introduction to it, a perfect track for a dreary Monday morning – download, listen, and prepare to hear us raving a LOT more about this lot. In the mean time, why not read our quick Q&A with the guys.

MP3: Kyte – Like She Said

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Kyte – Eyes Lose their Fire

It’s been a while since I last mentioned this lot. Hailing from Leicestershire, they make dreamy shoe-gaze stuff that is perfect for winter evenings sat in by the log fire. They’ve been making rather big waves in Japan of late, and whilst this video isn’t exactly brand new I love it. Directed directed by Yasufumi FUJII, it fits the song pretty well, with some great footage. Watch and enjoy this this evening.

As a musician, it’s perhaps impossible to not derive some sort of artistic influence and inspiration from the breathtakingly beautiful environment that is Snowdonia, North Wales. Nick Moon (also of electro quartet Kyte), and his girlfriend (come-fellow band member) revelled in said influences while located amid the picturesque Welsh region. Having found it an “inspiring place to record”, Nick got to work by penning several tracks, while his girlfriend added some backing vocals to the duo’s evolving material. The outcome? ‘Green Trees‘ – a beautifully ambient electro project which is, frankly, just too lovely to not tell you about.

We asked Nick what influenced the serenely psychedelic Green Trees -

“We love bands like The Flaming Lips, and then bands like Phoenix and The Notwist. But I try to get influenced by as many different areas as possible, Studio Ghibli films and Haruki Murakami books etc. We just went to the Studio Ghibli museum in Tokyo, amazing amazing place.”

Softly, Wayne Coyne stylee-vocals certainly flow among Green Trees’ trippy music – while the quirky influences of Murakami and Studio Ghibli animé are unsurprising when listening to the band’s mystical, fairytale-like sounds.

However, considering Green Trees are only new to us at the moment, the band are yet to officially release any material. Nick told us that they hoped to properly“release something maybe next year”, once his Kyte-shenanigans had calmed down a little. However, until then, Green Trees have treated us to a small selection of their dreamy songs over at their MySpace page – which we thoroughly recommend you go check out right now over on Myspace.

There’s few ways I can describe Kyte without getting overly excited about the beauty of their music. It’s so chilled out and relaxed you can’t help but just be transported to another world when listening to it. We were fortunate enough to be able to sit down yesterday with Nick, the lead singer of Kyte yesterday who answered a few questions and helped us to get to know them a little bit better.

For those who are a bit slow off the mark, how would you describe your sound?
Its like electronic, melodic pop music. I think.

I’ve always imagined your music providing the soundtrack to some great film moments – have any of your tracks appeared on TV / films? Any particular shows / films you would love to see your music featured on?
Yeah a couple of things, HBO used it on a trailer for The Sopranos. The BBC has used our songs on football focus a couple of times, pretty surreal to see that was. Also in Japan they used our song on a big sumo wrestling program, which meant when we started playing our song Sunlight over there it always got a huge cheer. It would be awesome to be involved more with films and soundtracks, films like Somersault which Decoder Ring did the soundtrack for, and Half Nelson with Broken Social Scene. The music has an amazing impact.

Your take on Solsbury Hill is pretty amazing. What inspired you to do it? Do you know if Peter Gabriel has heard it?
It was Tom’s idea and creation, we are all huge fans of the original song. We don’t know if he’s heard it or not, it would certainly be nice to meet him at somepoint. He is a huge influence, maybe we could persuade him to sing on a song of ours or something.

You guys have been on our radar for just over a year now and have slowly improved and gathered more press coverage – where do you see yourselves in another years time?
Who knows… we are looking forward to releasing some of our new songs this year, and playing them live. Some plans are starting to take shape for touring and the summer etc, so we’re all excited about that.

What have you all been listening to lately? Do you all like similar stuff, or is there an argument for who’s music gets played in the studio / tour van / dressing room?
I never know too much what the others have been listening to, I know Scott the other day was telling me more about Sebastian Tellier as we unfortunately missed him at Latitude. We were also talking about Digitalism’s album, and South Central. I’ve been listening to loads of CD’s my girlfriend gave me, The Acorn, Chairlift, Woodpidgeon and Simon & Garfunkel. I’l have to find out from Ben & Tom what they’ve listened to recently.

I stumbled across this video below whilst reading howies’ blog (who are an amazing company – I only have two T-shirts of theirs but they’re everything a company should be in my view).

It’s by a band from Leicester called Kyte, who we first introduced you to almost 12 months ago. I’d forgotten just how amazing they were – the video below was made for one of their earliest songs, “Sunlight”. Let us know what you think of the video in the comments below.

Watch, enjoy, and have a great weekend.

It’s been a pretty amazing year for music around the UK, and following on from my top 10 of 2007, here is my top 10 of 2008.

10 – Viva Stereo – Roar Lion Roar
You’ve probably not heard much about this Scottish collective. However, their third album was a surprise favourite for me – anthemic, accessible, slightly My Bloody Valentine and yet still so gorgeous.

Read more about Viva Stereo here.

Favourite: Knee High Boots.

9 – Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
As ever, an amazing collection from the Icelandic group. More pop than previous albums, their songs sound all the more amazing. I caught them live at Hydro Connect Festival in Scotland, where they preceded Franz Ferdinand and blew them out of the water. As the sun went down, they soundtracked the festival for us, showing their sense of humour and making beautiful music that had more than a few grown men in tears.

Favourite: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

8 – Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line
Dark in places, Ra Ra Riot come from the same school of musical geekiness as Vampire Weekend, but with a bit more serious and a bit less money. Dark in places, the group are still recovering from the death of their drummer in summer 2007, which shows on tracks like “Winter ‘05″.

Favourite: Dying is Fine

Read the rest of this entry »

We all love the Summer Sundae festival in Leicester. You know, the one that has helped to give a leg up to such bands as Hot Chip, Jamie T, The Young Knives and Kasabian. Well, as a warm up to this year’s festival (taking place on 8th – 10th August at DeMontfort Hall) the festival organisers are holding a special evening at the intimate Firebug venue in Leicester next Saturday, 1st March.

“A Taste of Summer Sundae” will see Envy and Other Sins headline, supported by Johnny Foreigner, Tired Irie and my current favourite band, Kyte.

Tickets are on sale now from Tickets Portal at the tiny price of just £2 each (plus the usual booking fees). If only I lived a bit closer to Leicester….

I’ve always been a fan of the quieter, more chilled bands that come and go, gaining themselves cult status whilst not many hard-core fans. One of my most recent finds is the rather marvellous Kyte, a quintet from Leicestershire who specialise in a unique brand of shoe-gaze, dreamy and haunting and beautiful all at once.

Perfect for just about any time of day or night, I found they sound amazing when listened to on the double decker back from London to Oxford late at night, a soundtrack to the lights and hubbub of the capital. Already the obvious comparisons have been made to Sigur Ros and the Radio Dept, they remind me of a British Tresspassers William, perfect for that winter evening in with a loved one, or a moment of introspection.

Unlike Sigur Ros however you don’t get the armageddon-is-nigh feeling that they do so well, instead a feeling of “mission completed”, a happiness that the world is a bit better, or at least a new day is dawning. Their tracks vary between instrumentals and quietly-hushed vocals, all of which mould together perfectly.

They’re currently touring heavily ahead of their debut mini album’s release next Monday, February 18^th (available from Amazon and co, but also from We Are Down With the Kids at £6). I’ve ordered two already, and expect a review next week once it’s popped through my front door. They’re touring throughout April with the rather marvellous iLiKETRAiNS (at any of these dates), so be sure to catch them then.

Can you tell I love these guys?