Kites Overhead

I know that most musicians hire publicity people to write their bios. Or they pretend like they did. (I’ve done both.) I thought that this time around, I’d just come out and say that it’s me.

My name’s Gene Kondusky. I was born in Toronto, Canada. My Dad’s American, my Mom’s Canadian, and my family bounced back and forth across the border for most of the seventies and eighties. Eventually, we settled in the Niagara region. That sort of biographical detail isn’t usually important, but I thought I’d mention it, since I think it comes to play in my music. Y’see, I’ve kind of kept up that tradition of moving around. I went to university to study English literature in the capital, Ottawa – as far away as my teenage ambitions could take me. Then, after I finished in 2004, I went about as far away as I could: Japan.

Travelling is a big part of my life – but so is music. It wasn’t long after I settled in on the shores of the Pacific that I had the urge to play again. Although I have a strong folk bent to my songwriting, I wasn’t really happy to be another iteration of the singer-songwriter-with-an-acoustic-guitar bit. I really wanted a full sound. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a band, and since I knew I wouldn’t be staying in Japan forever, didn’t really feel like I was in a position to start one. I overcame this dilemma by writing songs specifically for a looping station. If you don …

I know that most musicians hire publicity people to write their bios. Or they pretend like they did. (I’ve done both.) I thought that this time around, I’d just come out and say that it’s me.

My name’s Gene Kondusky. I was born in Toronto, Canada. My Dad’s American, my Mom’s Canadian, and my family bounced back and forth across the border for most of the seventies and eighties. Eventually, we settled in the Niagara region. That sort of biographical detail isn’t usually important, but I thought I’d mention it, since I think it comes to play in my music. Y’see, I’ve kind of kept up that tradition of moving around. I went to university to study English literature in the capital, Ottawa – as far away as my teenage ambitions could take me. Then, after I finished in 2004, I went about as far away as I could: Japan.

Travelling is a big part of my life – but so is music. It wasn’t long after I settled in on the shores of the Pacific that I had the urge to play again. Although I have a strong folk bent to my songwriting, I wasn’t really happy to be another iteration of the singer-songwriter-with-an-acoustic-guitar bit. I really wanted a full sound. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a band, and since I knew I wouldn’t be staying in Japan forever, didn’t really feel like I was in a position to start one. I overcame this dilemma by writing songs specifically for a looping station. If you don’t know what that is, just think of the music of Imogen Heap or Owen Pallett. Songs build in layers, rather than as verse-chorus-verse chunks. My particular brand of layering was chilled-out ambient acoustic music. My then-girlfriend suggested the name “The Noble Son” – the meaning of my given name – for the project. Excited, I agreed, and began to play shows.

Things went really well with the live shows, since people hadn’t really seen that style of music yet. After only a few months of playing mostly in front of friends, I did a short tour across Japan, which was really exciting for me.

At about the same time, the music program Garageband was released by Apple. Feeling ambitious, I decided to record an EP. The resulting release – appropriately titled “The EP,” – was pretty much a disaster. I really did not know what I was doing. I still stand by the songs themselves – but the recordings leave a bit to be desired. I know that’s not a great sales pitch, but if you’re interested, you can still find it on iTunes and the Home Is Not Here website.

Despite the dubious quality of the recordings, I still managed to get a fair bit of positive reviews. Radio stations in Australia, Belarus and Italy all played my music. I had articles and interviews about The Noble Son published in magazines and newspapers in Canada, the US, the UK, and a bunch of other places. I also received a lot of press when I moved to Turkey in 2006.

I moved back to Ottawa in 2007 to complete a Master’s degree in English literature. At that point, it had been over two years since I started the looping project, and to be honest, I was feeling more constricted by the looping station than liberated. Even though the looping station allowed me to push the boundaries of what one can accomplish with an acoustic guitar (and less than perfect skill!), I really wanted to expand my sound. Meanwhile, I had also done a lot of research and a lot of practice with digital audio workstations. After flirting with Garageband, Cubase, and a few others, I found a new muse in Ableton Live. The program helped me to reconsider the way I approach songwriting, and allowed me to employ a wide range of musical instruments (virtually, of course) that I would otherwise have been unable to access.

It became apparent sooner rather than later that this was an entirely new project. Since it was a new project, I thought a new name was in order. Having just seen the Canadian premiere screening of Heima, the Sigur Rós documentary (with Ottawa-native director Dean DeBlois on hand to do a Q and A!), I decided to name the new project “Kites Overhead,” referencing a particularly beautiful scene in the film.

After playing a few shows as Kites Overhead, I sat down to focus on recording a full-length album. The first song I actually completed was “Thaw.” Although that song went down to tape with relative ease, the remainder of the album definitely did not. It also didn’t help that after I finished the Master’s program (and after only a year in Ottawa), I moved up to the arctic. The arctic was amazing, but adjusting to life in the North took its toll on me in a number of ways.

After returning home to Toronto the next summer, I began focussing in earnest on completing the album. Some more work was done, and, following a move to Montréal in the autumn, I finally completed the album. The brilliant mastering engineer Harris Newman at Grey Market in Montréal completed final audio postproduction in March 2010. Mission accomplished!

I decided to divide the recordings into two releases. The first is an EP, called “In the Shadow of the Mountain,” which was released on 31 March 2010. It contains two songs to be released on the album, as well as a cover of a song by The Magnetic Fields. “In the Shadow of the Mountain” is available as a free download from the Home Is Not Here website. So far, the EP has been flying off the virtual shelves, and the Halifax-based online music magazine Herohill had some very kind words for the release.

The album, released on 7 September 2010, is called You are a secret, and you must never tell it. The title is a nod to American postmodern poet John Ashbery, and reflects my continued interest in literature and – I hope – my ongoing commitment to artistic exploration. So far, it's been doing well. It's playing on radio waves coast to coast, and I've had some great reviews come in at Herohill, Midnight Poutine, and NxEW.

Thanks for reading!