K.I.T are a super-melodic experimental rock band from Oakland, California. They play very fast, short, defiant songs that fuck with the ideas of pop music. Maybe they'll start off playing a song straight - sweetness and light abounds - but before you know it everything gets flipped on its head and chased into chaotic abstraction. K.I.T songs can typically embrace hardcore rush, pop verse, jagged noise and cheer rally, all within the same moment - nothing but raw positivity and instinctive songwriting holding it all together.

K.I.T are Kristy (vocals / yelps), Steve (guitar / thrashing), Vice Cooler (drums / freakouts) and George (guitar / feedback). Said members also perform in XBXRX, Lil' Pocketknife, Hawnay Troof, Snowsuit*, Warbler, DJ Shitbird and Boxleitner. To date the band have released three split 7" singles, one with LA post-hardcore group WIVES (PPM, 2003), one with weirdo-pop kindred spirits Deerhoof (Narnack, 2004) and one with Captain Ahab & Rose for Bodhan (Hug Life, 2005). All sold out rapidly on the back of the band's wildfire live shows and word of mouth.

'DREAMS ARE BURNED' FEAT. MIKE WATT

Flat Earth

UTR026 | 7" | 4 tracks, 9 mins | 24 Nov 2008

K.I.T. has written a batch of new songs that break the lengths of past efforts, yet delve into structural experiments with the same ferocity.

Vice Cooler hit on the idea of having Mike Watt guest on the tracks, and while George's suggestion of covering Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic classic "White Rabbit" with Watt on vocals was canned, the band did re-visit "Flat Earth" - a paean to their home town of Oakland that featured on debut LP 'Broken Voyage'.

The three other songs are filled out with melodic runs by the Minutemen and Stooges legend, while K.I.T's Steve holds down the official bass duties. Some horn overdubs by Jenna Thornhill of Silver Daggers / Mika Miko also find their way into the mix.

Lyrics touch on the state of ecological and political disrepair that even the least crustafarian music fan would have to notice in 2008, post-peak oil and in the last throes of Bush doctrine. Will we make it out the other side? The closing song offers some hopes.

The artwork is an intricate collage by Jessalyn Aaland, who has performed similar duties for Business Lady and Foot Village.

'BROKEN VOYAGE'

Star Sign | Forest

UTR008 | Digipack CD / LP | 11 tracks, 22 mins | 9 Apr 2007 | Buy

'Broken Voyage' is K.I.T's debut full-length about adventure, secrets, escape and the night. The album is an energetic blast of innovation and fun, with songs running in unpredictable yet ever electrifying directions. "Fixed Compass" is a hyperactive call-to-arms of gang chants and gnarly guitar duelling, which builds to an explosion only to regroup with slowly unfolding carnage. "Coast Of Arms" is a queasy seasick rampage, punctuated with a frantic drum breakdown and an urgent vocal from Kristy - a barrage of punked noise which descends into spectral electronic oddness, before triumphantly seizing the party pulse once more.

K.I.T don't stand on ceremony, they make their point, move on, then make another point, always with an intrepid sense of discovery in the heart of their sound. 'Broken Voyage' is an album of juxtaposition and invention, as surprising as it is involving - an incredible genre-leaping debut from a band on a mission to startle the life back into music.