David Kitt's album The Big Romancewas one of the lost Irish treasures of the 1990s. Now its creator is putting it back out there, and this time it could be happy ever after, writes TONY CLAYTON-LEA
MOST MUSICIANS wait until the 20th or 25th birthday of one of their albums to unfurl the flags, put out the bunting and roll out the barrels. David Kitt, however – in what seems like an uncharacteristic display of swiftness – has decided to take his second album, 2001’s The Big Romance, out of mothballs.
It's a shrewd move but you can't accuse him of jumping on a bandwagon. For some (including this writer), The Big Romanceis one of many brilliant Irish albums lost to the wind. As for others? Well, have they heard it at all?
If you have, then you'll know that The Big Romancebrims with tiny triumphs of both heart and soul. It's headphones music, no question, which references John Martyn as much as Brian Eno; it's tender music, too, full of lyrical passages, naturalistic words and – you're way ahead of me – a mood that is as irredeemably romantic as a double-bill of Before Sunriseand Before Sunset.
“I was very reluctant to do it,” says Kitt of putting on a 10th anniversary show, “as there is so much new stuff I’m working on at the moment.
“But friends, my family, and people in the industry were on my case to do something with it, so I had to listen. I mean, maybe they have a point, you know? Maybe I should be celebrating it. So I put on the record and I was surprised at how fresh it and the songs sounded.”
When Kitt wrote those songs, he recalls, it was a time when he was getting the best out of himself. “Of course, life gets in the way, and all sorts of stuff can block the creative flow. But at that particular point I really knew what I was doing – I can hear that on the record; and I can hear the confidence, the attention to detail.
“Listening to it, I could also really hear someone who is deeply in love with what he does. You can go through the mechanics, but confidence is the thing that gives you the ability to find the strengths and weaknesses in something, to bring the best out of yourself, to make decisions fast and to finish things. I felt I was managing to distill many different things on the record.”
In terms of the lyrical content, does he look back on the album in a sentimental manner? It is, is it not, rammed with romance, and thoughts and actions thereof? “Like anything,” he reasons, “you’d hate to be defined by your records, because, ultimately, they’re less than who you are. There are love songs on it that weren’t about anyone in particular, but more about that feeling. And, yes, there are songs that are very much about certain people.”
The intervening 10 years has seen Kitt’s star (such as it was – he graduated from the late 1990s Irish indie scene to signing with Rough Trade) not so much fall as plummet. While he has certainly dusted himself off and become reinvigorated by more possibilities than he might have imagined even five years ago, the genial 35-year-old now wonders if perhaps he didn’t fully appreciate the opportunities handed to him back then.
“We had an amazing time, all of us, the best days of our lives, but in terms of precision we were probably closer to Happy Mondays than, say, Radiohead.
“People say the gigs were amazing, but you know, maybe I was out of tune a good bit? My peers – Redneck Manifesto, Somadrome, Jape, all of us – are all much better musicians now. We’re all more responsible, too, which is fair enough. But, yes, it was fun. We did proper space jams right out of the Neu!/Can mould – and they worked, too.”
Space jams or not, Kitt has taken such a commercial battering over the past several years that you'd almost wonder why he continues making albums (his previous album, 2009's Nightsaver, he nods glumly, sold fewer than 900 copies). Creative self-worth and a compulsion to engage with art are but two of the reasons.
“For anyone who started around the late 90s, you were catching the tail end of the old business model of the music industry,” he comments.
“I was caught up in that, and I’m only really getting out of it now. You’re watching the demise of the industry that you work in, and as much as you’re doing the things you love, you’re also wondering how you’re going to sustain what you’re doing. That’s a question I face every day.”
The past two years, he admits, have been about rediscovering his love for music and building up other areas to which he can apply his talents. The old ways of doing things have changed, haven’t they? “You have to accept that and get on with it. If you really love doing what you do, and you are committed to it then you will find some way to sustain it.
“I’m lucky that I deal in melody-driven music that is quite accessible and that could appeal to a wide audience.”
David Kitt performs The Big Romance, Vicar Street, Dublin, December 9. The Big Romanceis available for purchase from davidkitt.net
A BIT ON THE SIDE: Kitt's collaborations
SPILLY WALKER"Me and my brother Robbie, inspired by a shared love of a lot of the same house music and hip-hop, started making music when he was 16. He's classically trained and pretty nifty on the keys, and I really trust him to finish my sentences, musically. After five years of steady progress it's really started to click with the last few gigs and Robbie is getting more involved in the writing. We'll be announcing a fundit campaign in January to help pay for an album release – the record is 90 per cent done."
NEW JACKSON"I started New Jackson (aka nocturnal house jams for the 4am dancefloor) in January this year with the idea of making tunes really quickly and putting them up on Soundcloud for free download before I had the chance to tweak them to death. I was pleasantly surprised with the reaction – it's great to get such immediate feedback. Bodytonic's Pogo Recordings have just put out the first EP, The Night Mail,and I'll be joined by Damien 'Diamond Dagger' Lynch for future releases."
TINDERSTICKS"I did around 60 gigs as a member of Tindersticks' touring band in 2010, and did a small bit of writing on the new record, due for release in 2012. I'm a big fan so it's pretty amazing being involved."
SOMADRONE"I've been playing guitar and keyboards in Somadrone, and it's been a real highlight of 2011. The new songs are mind-blowing."
NEXT SOLO RECORD"My next solo record is pretty much written and will be more a band-in-a-room affair; there'll be electronics, too, but more played than programmed. Dave Hingerty, Dunk 'Sunken Foal' Murphy, Katie Kim, Stuart Staples and Karl Odlum are going to be involved. We'll probably roll out the nostalgia a bit more next year and start fresh again with this in early 2013."
