Kitchens of Distinction stood apart among dream pop acts for placing as much weight on emotive songwriting as on swirling guitar atmospherics. The trio came together in London, England during 1986 when singer-bassist Patrick Fitzgerald joined guitarist Julian Swales and drummer Daniel Goodwin; Swales spotted an advertisement that supplied the group’s name. Their first release, “Last Gasp Death Shuffle,” appeared in 1987 on the band’s own Gold Rush imprint and earned NME’s Single of the Week designation, prompting a move to One Little Indian. Two additional singles, “Prize” and “The 3rd Time We Opened the Capsule,” set the stage for the debut album Love Is Hell in 1989. Although both that record and the subsequent Elephantine EP drew strong critical praise, much early coverage centered on Fitzgerald’s status as an openly gay artist at a moment when such openness remained uncommon.
Despite their cult reputation, the band reached the U.K. Top 40 with the Hugh Jones-produced Strange Free World in 1991. Issued in the United States on A&M, the album placed on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart through the singles “Drive That Fast” and “Quick as Rainbows.” A broader follow-up, The Death of Cool, also helmed by Jones, arrived in 1992 and yielded further U.S. chart entries with “Smiling” and “4 Men.” After the self-produced Cowboys and Aliens in 1994 left them without a label, they resurfaced briefly on Fierce Panda in 1996 under the name Kitchens O.D. with the single “Feel My Genie,” which Melody Maker named Single of the Week. The group disbanded soon afterward. Fitzgerald later issued material as Fruit and as Stephen Hero while collaborating with Heidi Berry in Lost Girls; Swales composed for television and theatrical productions.
Several years after the 2003 anthology Capsule: The Best of KOD 1988-94 appeared, an attempt to reconvene in Fitzgerald’s studio reached an impasse. Fitzgerald, Swales, and Goodwin eventually reunited once more and, across a two-year stretch of informal sessions, completed their fifth and final studio album, Folly, released in 2013. In 2017 the label issued Watch Our Planet Circle, a box set encompassing the band’s first four albums together with B-sides and radio sessions.
