Head Like a Kite - Random Portraits of the Home Movie

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 27 / 11 / 2006

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Review

I must admit I thought this was going to be heavy going when reading the press release which says that Dave Einmo (who is really Head Like A Kite; he wrote all the songs and performed most of the sounds with the exception of drums and some bass) wanted to “take the random ambience you hear outside and record it into my songs”. He sampled sounds from the Super 8 movies his parents shot in the 70's “through guitar effects and analogue gadgets to create synth like sounds” but amazingly it works, and works extremely well. For starters this doesn’t sound like some over indulgent musician making music for his own satisfaction. Music that has that personal touch and which, quite honestly, should have stayed in the bedroom in which it was made, if allowed to be committed to tape at all. The album starts with ‘Intro’ always a good place to begin, a short spoken piece which suffers from the over-used effect of trying to recreate old vinyl, pops and crackles everywhere. But than it’s straight into ‘Words Of A Friend’, all ghostly vocals and electronic bleeps over a tune which comes as a great surprise. It’s so catchy, but penning a catchy tune while immersing it in any number of strange sound effects is something that Einmo proves he is more than capable of. The entire album is chock full of them. ‘Your Butt Crack Smile’ follows and electronically treated vocals eat into a wall of sound which is a curious but brilliant mix of New Order and the Wedding Present. All the while these strange bleeps and sounds are weaving in and out of the song. ‘Tell Mommy You Want A Sip Of Beer’ is the next song, this time an instrumental in which voice samples from those childhood movies dart in and out while a creepy cello does its best to unsettle you. But again it’s those melodies which are so strong which capture the attention. From the CD package to the press release we are fooled into thinking that this CD is some kind of personal soundscape which wouldn’t appeal much to those who were not involved but any song can be singled out and held up on its own merits. Each individual song is just that; a song. The album is not just a mishmash of sounds put through the blender with the hope that someone, somewhere might just ‘get it’. These are fully realised songs that just happen to have a common thread running through them. ‘Random Portraits OF The Home Movie’ is a collection of songs that defies any type of genre. Electronica, pop, rock, vintage-synth, it’s all in there and not once does Einmo lose the obvious talent he has in wrapping the whole lot up in memorable tunes. There are moments of genuine weirdness for sure. A lot of the voice samples are so far back in the mix it’s impossible to make out exactly what it being said, but somehow it doesn’t matter. The outcome is a beautiful montage of sound. In the entire album is a 33 minute journey which you’ll want to take time and time again with each trip discovering new treasures.

Track Listing:-

1 Intro
2 Words of a Friend
3 Your Butt Crack Smile
4 Tell Mommy You Want a Sip of Beer
5 A Dime and a Cigarette
6 Interested in Worms?
7 Pour Me a Drink!
8 Intermission
9 Noisy at the Circus
10 My Crystal Trousers
11 Injecting 10ccs of Temptation
12 Blue Merlot in Tokyo
13 Manipulation
14 Scenes from the World Trade Center 1979
15 Outro