Jammerzine Exclusive: An Interview with The Orange Kyte

Jammerzine has an exclusive interview with Stephen White of The Orange Kyte. Having released their latest album titled ‘Carousel‘ last October, Stephen has taken this time of quarantine and utilized it to both the advantage of the band as well as the fans. That can be explained in the interview, as we get in-depth here.

And, in this interview, we learn about the beginnings of The Orange Kyte as well as the evolution of ‘Carousel’ and where things are headed. Enjoy!

ABOUT THE ORANGE KYTE

Based in Vancouver, The Orange Kyte was founded in 2016 by Dubliner Stephen White (a.k.a. Stevie Moonboots), currently a touring member of Magic Shoppe and previously of Strange Things and Ireland’s House of Dolls. With a revolving array of musicians, The Orange Kyte are purveyors of psychedelicy, dreampoppy, shoegazey, droney, tasty morsels for our audio sensory pleasures.

Mixed and mastered by Josiah Webb of Magic Shoppe, ‘Carousel’ was recorded over the course of a year. Comprised of ten tracks, there are seven ‘full-band’ songs involving Stephen White (vocals, guitars), Dave Mulvaney (drums), Pierce Kingan (bass, vocals), Mat Durie (keys, guitar), and Matty Reed (sax). There are also three stripped-down recordings, utilizing drum machines and acoustic guitars, for which Stephen was joined on drums by Chris van der Laan, who engineered and produced this album.

Influenced by psychedelia, krautrock, The Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett, Graham Coxon, The Byrds, Primal Scream, The Who, Death in Vegas, CAN, White Fence, Spiritualized, and Super Furry Animals, Stephen White describes the band’s sound as a loose cacophony of visceral sonic tomfoolery, fixed together with pop-informed melody, three safety pins, and some scotch tape.

The Orange Kyte began as White’s solo project with the idea to write, record, and release a digital single every month as a means to push himself to work within limitations and also collaborate with as many other musicians and studio engineers as he could from month to month.

“Carousel is the LP that could only have been created after the experimentation of ‘Grow It Right’ and ‘The Orange Kyte Says Yes!’. The main intentions were to improve from release to release and to allow the project to continuously evolve, and to be a mercurial shape-shifting entity from record to record. From the start, I just wanted to further myself as a traditional songwriter. At the core of the songwriting for Carousel is the desire for each song to have the ability to be performed with just a voice and acoustic guitar if ever the occasion called for it, while also having the ability to be belted out boisterously with the full band.” says Stephen White.

The Orange Kyte’s garage rock sensibilities have been attracting increased attention, leading to opportunities for the band to play Levitation Vancouver and Desert Daze Festival in Joshua Tree, to tour the west coast with The Babe Rainbow, and to play alongside many of their favorite bands on the psych scene, not to mention ongoing support from Seattle’s KEXP, among other media outlets.

Released on October 25, ‘Carousel’ is available digitally across the net, including on Spotify, Apple Music and directly from the artist via Bandcamp, as well as on 12″ pink vinyl from Little Cloud Records (US/Canada) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK/EU). The band is also offering their track ‘No More Christmas Blues’ as a standalone single, available on a pay-what-you-want basis.

LINKS:
https://www.theorangekyte.com
https://theorangekyte.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/theorangekyte
https://twitter.com/theorangekyte
https://www.instagram.com/the_orange_kyte
https://www.youtube.com/user/stafaleko/videos
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3moUP6iTTQrnQtmLLHMul2
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-orange-kyte/1259392320