D E A T H K I T
Death Kit is a band formed in response. To a Los Angeles indie rock scene too witheringly lazy to pursue the potential and precision of electronica. To a dance music culture that’s chained to its laptops and bereft of its original thrills.
First formed in the top floor of a 1920’s studio apartment in Koreatown populated by end-times Christians and a cast of constantly-dying fellow tenants, August Brown began producing sleek, melancholy, pop-damaged disco as Death Kit in 2008. The rules: immediate melodies; gender-curious vocals; acidic lyrics; arrangements steeped in synthetic decadence, creepy ambience and occasional noise. Kompakt Records, LCD Soundsystem and My Bloody Valentine allusions followed, more-or-less accurately.
August played drums and sang for the first show at Silver Lake’s Club Spaceland in October of 2009. Friends filled the live instrument gaps in various lineups, eventually setting in as a duo with Brown and drummer C.M. Rodriguez.
Death Kit worked alongside collaborators including Tom Biller (Kanye West, Liars, Warpaint), Dave Cooley (Silversun Pickups, J. Dilla, These New Puritans) and Lucian Walker (pick a major pop singer in L.A.). They cut a video for their first single “I Can Make You Love Me” with director John Christopher Pina (Kanye, John Legend, Common), starring a depressed werewolf. Death Kit has played alongside Lefse’s How To Dress Well, Rough Trade’s Pantha Du Prince, Ghostly’s The Sight Below, Domino’s Max Tundra, Warp’s PVT, and most clubs east of Vermont Ave. and west of the River. Outlets including L.A.’s tastemaking radio station 89.9 KCRW, One Thirty BPM, Buzzbands.la, L.A. Record, Rawkblog.net, Angeleno Magazine, Beatcrave.com, Turntable Kitchen, Style Section L.A., Passion of the Weiss and other international blogs have said very kind things.
“Devadasi” is Death Kit’s first single for Fort Lowell Records. There are shards of Liquid Liquid, Arvo Part, Sade and Basic Channel in it. A “devadasi” is a young woman conscripted into prostitution in the service of a Hindu deity. The B-side is a remix of “I Can Make You Love Me” by Fort Lowell peers and Tucsonan fellow-travelers …music video?.