Head Like A Kite

Presents An Aural Road Trip

By William Cremin

Photo by Dan Tyler

For many bands, a cross-country tour presents the opportunity to catch up on various activities such as reading, sleeping in awkward places, nightly carousing and watching livestock pass by van windows. Head Like a Kite’s Dave Einmo used his spare time on the road supporting his debut album to lay the groundwork for his sophomore album and recent Mush Records release, There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere. Far from the traditional approach of hotel room guitar workouts and rehearsals at soundcheck, the Seattle-based purveyor of “American-made electronic rock” instead developed a predefined concept for the record and collected source material as he went from place to place.

“What I was trying to create was sort of an aural road trip – a party that starts in the West Coast, goes all the way to the East Coast and comes right back,” Einmo says. He was able to imbue the project with this distinctly itinerant feel by capturing the ambient background noises and sonic environments that he and touring drummer Trent Moorman experienced during their travels. “I would bring this little field recorder with me and I would record all of the sounds we would hear in each city,” says Einmo. “I put together a collage of all these cityscapes, and then when I got back from the tour, I would start messing with some of those sounds, sampling them and adding them into the songs as a sort of backdrop.”

Head Like a Kite’s first album, Random Portraits of the Home Movie, was similarly threaded together by a thematic arch. For that project, the found sounds and inspiration came from his parents’ collection of home movies shot on Super 8 film.

Einmo used his scoring experience to generate musical ideas the way a composer for film would: “I was working on some different soundtrack work and that’s how I was creating these scores for the soundtracks, watching the films and reacting to them musically,” he explains. “I thought it would be really exciting to then take that approach with more of a pop music aesthetic instead of just instrumentals.”

This time around, the music was once again composed in highly improvisational tracking sessions at Einmo’s home studio, albeit without the visual cues. The resulting songs run a carefully measured, yet broad gamut of styles within the construct of what Einmo considers a “party record.” Here he explores the electronic medium in an extremely organic way as live brass, strings and drums sit comfortably alongside vintage synths, 808 beats and indie rock guitars. “I always try to put it together almost like a mixtape,” Einmo explains. “So there’s definitely an eclectic vibe to the records.”

Contributing to that diverse feel is a healthy list of guest musicians. Along with the aforementioned Moorman and many others, Seattle notables Zera Marvel, Asya of Smoosh, Graig Markel and The Long Winters’ Eric Corson are featured on the album. “I think when you have a record that’s primarily done by one person, it just sounds like some guy in his basement,” says Einmo. “I really wanted to work with a lot of people, but I wanted to have a strong vision about what the record should sound like.”

Einmo has taken part in fully collaborative bands in the past, logging time with both Sushirobo and Spyglass in the early 2000s, but he now embraces the freedom of helming his own project. “Being in a band, you have to deal with so much politics and diplomacy, and I think that can often get in the way of actually creating good music,” he says. On There is Loud Laughter Everywhere, his singular vision is fleshed out by a well-rounded cast of ancillary players that serve the project nicely.

Fresh off of the album’s summer release, Einmo is looking ahead to further touring, licensing opportunities and new music. A truly dedicated working musician, he already has a jump on material for the next Head Like a Kite record. As he says, “I’m always recording because of the way I write songs.” If his output up until now is any indication, Einmo will continue to turn the commonplace into cinematic pop; his relentless efforts to push the envelope creatively show no signs of slowing.

www.headlikeakite.com