Kite Stories

Infobox Album
Name = Kite Stories
Type = Album
Artist = Brian Eno


Released = 1999
Recorded = Nov-Dec 1999, London
Genre = Ambient
Length = 30:10
Label = Opal
Producer = Brian Eno
Reviews =
Allmusic Rating|3|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:yfuk6jp271w0 link]
Chronology = Brian Eno
Last album = "I Dormienti" (1999)
This album = Kite Stories (2000)
Next album = "Music for Onmyoji" (2000)

"Kite Stories" is an ambient "Installation" album from British musician Brian Eno, released in 1999.

Track listing

# Kites I - 8:06
# Kites II - 7:34
# Kites III - 14:30

Overview

An Opal release, with no catalogue number, this title is only available from EnoShop.

The music on the album is taken from an "Installation" - a show featuring music and visuals - that took place at the "Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art" in Helsinki, Finland, from December 11th 1999 to February 6th 2000.

The Installation included a generative music system and a collection of objects chosen for their spatial presence - stones, sand and light sculptures. The original music was composed of eight layers of sound, each one playing on a CD player situated somewhere in the gallery, the sounds from which were all looped, providing an almost infinite variety of sonic possibilities. The music on the CD, at only half an hour in length, is a very much curtailed version of something that lasted for two months.

Eno made the music in his studios in London. He said "I think of shows like this as 'music in more dimensions' or perhaps 'music for more senses' .... a process more similar to painting or collage than conventional music composition. One element in it is nearly 20 years old; most of it was made last week. The music is divided into 8 independent layers, one of which is playing on each CD player. Since these players are not synchronized, the music constantly recombines into different patterns".

The heavily-treated, slowed-down & stretched-out vocals on parts II & III are based on a Japanese ghost-story, "Onmyo-Ji", by Reiko Otano and was read by Kyoko Inatome, a waitress from his favorite sushi restaurant [http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/2000news.html 1] . Eno comments "I time-stretched her readings using Sound-Designer software, and then re-pitched the stretched voice using Digitech Studio Vocalist".

"The Stars are faraway suns" "In The Temple of Heaven" "Another name for it is" "The Temple of Little Lights"

Credits

* Brian Eno : cover art
* Special thanks to:
** Marlon Weyeneth : technical assistant to Brian Eno
** Catherine Dempsey : organisation (London)
** Charmian Norman-Taylor : administration and Japanese-English translation At Kiasma

Miscellanea

* "Kite II" and "Kite III" were two of the tracks that formed the basis for his Installation album "Music for Civic Recovery Centre" (2000).
* The catalogue which was sold in the Hayward gallery in 2000 (home to some of his Installation pieces) is accompanied by a 2-CD compilation album ("Sonic Boom: The Art Of Sound") featuring various artists, CD 2 of which contains an excerpt of "Kites III" [http://www.discogs.com/release/253360 2] .
* Kyoko Inatome, who provides vocals for the album, is also featured on "Music for Onmyoji", Eno's 2000 album with Reiko Okano, Baku Yumemakura & Peter Schwalm.

External links

* [http://www.rubli.net/_beepdiscog/HT_FILES/html/85144.htm "Beep" discography entry]
* [http://www.discogs.com/release/183282 "Discogs.com" entry]
* [http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/1999news.html "Hyperreal" report of the Installation]
* [http://www.kiasma.fi/index.php?id=11&L=1&FL=0 "Kiasma" homepage]
Brian Eno