Kitchens Of Distinction - Songs in fade-out

Kitchens of Distinction embodied one of the most dazzling experiences in the history of British pop. The line-up consisted of Patrick Fitzgerald on vocals and bass, Julian Swales on guitars - reportedly already active in the early nucleus of All About Eve - and Dan Goodwin on drums, who had cut his teeth with the seminal A.R. Kane. The band's enduring cult status owes much, beyond their clear artistic merits, to the legends surrounding the project's origins. The year is 1986, while the place where they met remains shrouded in mystery: for some a Turkish sauna, for others a temple devoted to Satanic worship near Amsterdam. The name itself is curious too, taken from an advertisement.

However it happened, the band's recording career officially began in 1987 with "Last Gasp Death Shuffle", NME's single of the week and already representative of the stylistic paths the band would follow. "Prize" and the gorgeous "The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule" came next - still one of the most striking tracks in their catalogue to this day - paving the way for their debut album, Love Is Hell, in 1989.

But bear with us a moment, let's take a step back first. The turn of the decade between the late Eighties and early Nineties was a crossroads of creative movements developing almost in osmosis with one another, though along parallel lines: shoegazing, C86, Madchester, and above all a string of bands left an indelible mark on the history of British rock. Kitchens Of Distinction dwelt in a golden limbo where the tremors of those scenes could be felt, where it was possible to absorb their creative vibrations without being swept up in the earthquake itself. Belonging to none of those scenes, they nonetheless managed to capture their defining elements: dream-pop's psychedelic gusts, near-danceable rhythms and a post-Smiths existential yearning, all seasoned with Patrick Fitzgerald's extraordinary sensitivity, passionate vocals and intimate lyrics on themes such as love and homosexuality.

A sound that would find its furthest reaches of research and experimentation in the madrigals of Slowdive, yet indebted to A.R. Kane, Cocteau Twins, Felt, Durutti Column, Echo And The Bunnymen, Chameleons, and the Postcard romanticism dictated via Orange Juice. As so often happens in the history of music, though, the credit for such a personal vision would go to those who later developed those same intuitions; too pop to be considered experimentalists, not charismatic enough to enter the popular imagination.

A centrality denied them, and a truly inexplicable ostracism on the part of the music press (or perhaps explicable, given how hard they were to pigeonhole), despite the band's thoroughly alternative credentials - this led certain radio shows to refuse covering their music, and even John Peel, who for years would not grant them one of his famous sessions; we, of course, disagree with the late maestro's choice on that one.

By joining the demands of genuinely admirable sonic exploration with a fully realized pop sensibility, Kitchens Of Distinction gifted us storms of melancholy breeze, true treasures of the most refined intimism; over the course of this piece you'll come across adjectives like "splendid", "stunning", "magnificent" - never have they felt more fitting than in the case of this London band.

Despite a fairly pronounced melodic bent, Kitchens Of Distinction's songs can prove not easy to digest, as emerges from numerous listening experiences. On first impact they can seem flat, as if they slip by without a single jolt. Beyond any individual listener's sensibility, this may well stem from the sheer concentration of styles and sonic legacies at play. Often fast tempos and sudden psychedelic explosions, much like Fitzgerald's delivery - wordy more often than not - push the melodies into the background, so they need to be sought out, unearthed from beneath a thick layer of signs, some grating, mostly disorienting. But do it anyway, listen and don't rush to judgment: the buds won't take long to bloom.

Love Is Hell came out in 1989, as we said, undoubtedly the band's finest album as well as a dazzling, flawless, definitive debut. Here you'll find Kitchens Of Distinction's best songs, their best melodies, more clearly on display here than in their later work. The formula is virtually identical (but winning): the sound starts out bare before being enriched with elegant, lush arrangements and emotional crescendos fit to make your soul bleed. The influence of early-Eighties dark-wave is clear, in the form of pulsing basslines, while Swales's guitar sketches gentle, sorrowful melodies, wrapped in storms of icy air. Towering over everything is Fitzgerald's passionate singing, front and center, at times intrusive, never overly emphatic, but often evocative.

Worth noting first of all are the two singles that preceded the album's release, "Prize" and "The 3rd Time We Opened The Capsule", songs with a driving rhythm, prominent bass and dreamy explosions that suddenly steal the attention. On the same wavelength is "Margaret's Injection", an anti-Thatcherite delirium in which Fitzgerald's vocals get lost in a series of swirling ambient nebulae that collapse, delivering a finale of structured psychedelic chaos. Melodies interlock and intertwine in "Hammer", not unlike the best of Church, while "1001st Fault" sadly describes the end of a relationship, with the bass repeating the same melodic line, folding in on itself until the final release. Slow and brooding is "Her Last Day In Bed", underpinned by a violin that accompanies Fitzgerald's angry, anguished declamation, but definitely worth mentioning are "Courage Mother", a nimble post-punk number with Bunnymen-esque flavours, and "Shiver", built around the appearance and disappearance of guitar reverb.

Love Is Hell, already a mature album, testifies to a tightly-knit band in which internal dynamics evolve in a balanced way, with none of the components acting domineering, somewhat like the Morrissey/Marr pairing. But above all, what remains are the songs - the kind that trigger a Stendhal syndrome.

Less than two years go by and Kitchens Of Distinction are back on the scene with the follow-up to Love is Hell; it's called Strange Free World and, against all odds, it even manages a brief appearance in the UK chart, albeit around the fortieth position and for just one week. Produced by Hugh Jones, who had also worked with Echo And The Bunnymen and Rem among others, it doesn't quite reach the heights of the previous album, but it's certainly worth hearing, and it's remarkable how it manages to grip and captivate listen after listen, following an initial sense of disorientation. The rhythms are driving on almost every track, so much so that it sounds like a dream-pop version of Rem themselves, while the sound is even more enveloping, a clear transition towards the fog of the following album. The record kicks off in style with a couple of romantic Orange Juice-style inventions, the sweet "Railwayed", a melodic progression at the gates of paradise, and the single "Quick as Rainbows", the epitome of the KOD sound, a weave of acoustic guitars and electric melodies. Strange Free World lacks variety, an evolving sound, but above all the band fails to offer alternatives to its original model, so the tracks slip by, delightful for sure but without the breaks that would let you critically tell one song from another. You fall under a sort of syrupy, but not unwelcome, hypnosis right up to the magnificent "Aspray", a wavering fantasy amid celestial reverbs that would make Slowdive envious, but above all a performance from Fitzgerald that is both anguished and epic, showing just how much beauty can lurk within decay.

The surprises don't stop there, and before the meditative finale of "Under the Sky, Inside the Sea", complete with an evocative trumpet from Kick Horns, it's essential to mention track number 9, "Within The Daze of Passion", a shimmering power-pop intoxication, with a classic crescendo of intensity, emotional overflow and an explosion into a thousand ambient streams.

Although it's mainly a transitional album in terms of the evolution of the sound, Strange Free World is made up of a handful of memorable songs, and we'd recommend picking it up, no question.

It's paradoxical how The Death Of Cool, despite containing fewer standout songs, is a far more consistent work than Strange Free World; here it's the sound that makes the difference, professional, accomplished, the band's stylistic and formal peak, as they say in these cases. The real star is Julian Swales' guitar, impressive in painting hazy soundscapes made of smoky ambient tears. The tracks are wrapped in a psychedelic sheen, while the average running time increases, giving us genuine "pop suites", glassy existential tunnels with no way out. Fitzgerald finds a broader bed on which to lay his delivery, a depth of sound that suits his stream-of-consciousness, psychological singing well. Decay takes a back seat in favour of a twilight romanticism, carried by complex melodic structures and slowed-down rhythms.

The album actually opens with the darting "What Happens Now", the usual psychedelic pop roundness in the Bunnymen mould under a starry sky, and continues with "4 Men", music entirely subservient to Fitzgerald's declamation, one of his peaks of romantic decadence in lines like: "Stars are falling down onto this broken-hearted hungry clown because he can't get his fill… because I want you and I'll have you I'll crush my arms around you until I melt inside you".

Glimmers standing out against distorting mirrors, reflected lights that illuminate the darkness in the beautiful "Gone World Gone", 8 minutes of guitar flashes that materialise like ectoplasm, a prize cut on the record. Kitchens Of Distinction seem able and willing to push further with "Blue Pedal", with Fitzgerald's vocals this time monotone, getting lost among shoegaze layering, frequency games and psychedelic swoons. It edges close to Catherine Wheel's "Ferment", if not quite Ride's "Nowhere", hinting at a drift towards drone-rock territory, but that's not where it goes. For the record, The Death Of Cool also made the UK charts, reaching number seventy-two to be precise.

The hideous boy-band-esque cover art, among other things, doesn't bode well, and indeed, while it's a decent effort, Cowboy And Aliens shows the strain. The sonic exploration had already reached the point of no return with The Death Of Cool, and the band seems unsure which direction to take. Or maybe it's simply an album knocked out to honour themselves and their fans.

Kitchens Of Distinction dust off the six-string razor with real conviction, and that's clear from the very start, with the opening "Sand On Fire", a tangle of feedback shaping a shoegaze suggestion à la Swervedriver. The sound is obviously more earthbound, at times even pedestrian; in hindsight the songs are there once again, and it's a barely concealed sense of weariness, stemming from the awareness that this is the end, that further undermines the album's success. But the depths of sadness in "Thought He Had Everything" and the melancholy close of "Prince Of Mars" confirm, though there was hardly any need, their status as pop music thoroughbreds. A special mention goes to "Come on Now", with the instruments entering one by one in sequence, Pixies-style, an introduction to one last melodramatic farewell from Fitzgerald. Novocaine for the soul.

Today, the sounds Kitchens Of Distinction helped create are very much in fashion, just think of Morr Music, the Nordic bands, Sigur Rós, Worm Is Green for instance, and lone wolves like Khonnor and Ulrich Schnauss.

But if a pop band's worth is measured by its songs, then these Londoners deserve to be counted among the giants of music from Albion, having produced so many memorable ones.

Dropped by One Little Indian, and with the 1996 single "Feel My Genie" delivering one last parting shot, Kitchens Of Distinction ended their career in a melancholy fade-out, just like their music.

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