Kites

Operating under the name Kites, Christopher Forgues produces harsh noise as a solo act. He emerged early among New England practitioners of circuit-bending and belongs to Providence, Rhode Island’s second-generation noise community. Because Forgues custom-builds both instruments and set lists for every appearance, no fixed portrait of his work holds; performances have frequently featured a wearable network of wires, cables, and transistors that responds to bodily motion and feeds into a large amplifier while he screams, gestures emphatically, or grins wildly. The resulting silhouette often resembles a scarecrow whirling inside its own private storm. Kites originated in 2000, and the debut full-length, Royal Paint with the Metallic Gardner from the United States Helped into an Open Field by Women and Children, arrived in 2003. That record interleaved live and makeshift studio pieces, pairing searing, drawn-out noise with delicate, childlike bedroom takes on handclaps and banjo. Early in 2004 Forgues joined Prurient and Hair Police for a tour. Later the same year Load Records issued a split 12" pairing Kites with local noise artist Prurient. The turbulent second album, Peace Trials, followed in 2005, and the persistently exploratory Hallucination Guillotine appeared in 2007.