AA Kismet

AA Kismet discography
‘where’s the rest of me ?” (1999, ADM Records)
‘what’s the use of crying when the wolves have arrived ?'(2001, ZZZZZZ-records)
plus two tracks (Crisis as usual & Oscilloscope) on InPolySons sampler ‘No more, No Mouroir’

Where’s The Rest Of Me?
ADM32975CD

AA Kismet is a direct descendant of Dull Schicksal and later ‘The Rosebuds’ and much of the material on this, their first, CD had been recorded by Dull already or at least performed live. The problem was that these songs were a bit to ‘poppy’ to be included in the Dull repertoire. The main idea by this CD was to make an un-ashamedly pop-album and become filthy rich. We succeded on the first count and the reactions and reviews by those few who have heard the CD agree with us completely.
And although this is much more commercial then anything made by Dull, we fully understand (on second hearing) why we’re not nominated for any MTV-award or even its equivalent in Sexbierum, Friesland (pop. 1500) The opening song did inspire and served as the music for two short movies; ‘Nee’ By Segher Van Wijk and ‘Questions and answers’ By Marieke vd Lippe.

AA Kismet did one tour so far (see pictures), with the crew that played on the first CD (Bob,Lukas, Eveline and Cor).The problem with playing live is that Bob & Lukas don’t live exactly next door (Rotterdam-South of France) and with the second album, AA Kismet turned more or less into a studio project. At the moment it’s not really clear if there will ever be a third AA Kismet album, as AA Kismet incarnated in VRIL.

WHAT’S THE USE OF CRYING WHEN THE WOLVES HAVE ARRIVED
label : zzzzzz-records / Z6-991

This is the second cd by the dutch/american duo AA Kismet. Their firstborn (where’s the rest of me ?) was an attempt to make the perfect pop-record (under their conditions), on this second cd they’ve abandoned that noble attempt. Recorded and produced in a barn in the countryside in the south of France it sounds somewhat in between advanced lo-fi and sloppy perfectionism. The main theme was to write within song-like structures, but they took the liberty to ignore those at moments of their own choice.

Bob Drake (usa) currently lives in france but used to work as a soundtechnician in Los Angeles as a favorite of many hip-hop acts, amongst others Ice Cube, who even swears at him on one of his cd’s. He also worked for Peter Sellars, Ike & Tina Turner, Quincy Jones and others. His own music was allways more experimental. Apart from his solo work he played in The Nudes, the 5 uu’s, Thinking Plague, the Science group and Hail.

Lukas Simonis (nl) lives in Rotterdam. Played/plays in Dull Schicksal, Morzelpronk, Trespassers W, Coolhaven and other groups. Lately he mainly made electronic and improvised music, working together with people like; Ann La Berge, Paulo Angeli, Jon Rose, Pierre Bastien and The Bohman Brothers.

COMMUNICATION ON ‘WOLVES’

self mutation –

broad sound,   floating.like a river.

the bad elvis ;

the part ‘take some uppers…’ has also a noise guitar, mostly to distinct it from the violon-melody part. to give it an totally different atmosphere

the words ‘so let’s hope for the best, let’s be tender ghosts’ should be put 1 second later in the music and be very soft.

my voice at the end doublked by you ? my voice at the start ; not too loud

absolutely nothing but

the riffy-part after the intro should be twice as long, without the singing but maybe with some balloon stuff and the screamchoir now and then. it should become a (kinda minimalistic) built up for the singing part.

the end ;   kinda like self mutation but different.

fade out as much to the end as possible

cook on tv

add one guitar please
how i lost my leg ;

the instruments should sound BIGGER then on the rough mix. i like a metallic ukelele-sound.

the thread ;

i like the quiet minimal sound of this song as it was on the rough mixes. the ebow-guitars in the background. just the voice could be more IN the music then floating on top of it.

fear ;

you’re gonna get an extra accordeon track on this one.

 

beautiful people ;

kinda finished allready i think.

 

cabo de gata ;

same sound as fear, wouldn’t mind a kind of strumming/slide guitar

mobile ;

the beginning of the rough mix is very good/with some voice mumbling and the sounds of the guitar-plug. in the rest of the song, the guitarnoise is not so important, it could maybe even be replaced by (above mentioned)noises as made in the first verse

all that fall ;

my voice lacks a bit high

duck ;

this is not so bad as it sounds. i like the intro and sometimes the chorusses.

i don’t like so much the singing part after the second chorus ‘a flipout about lining up….” etc. and the noise at the end is uninteresting as it is now. do what you like. (we recorded some acoustic parts on the day i left)

NINA ;

the stupid little song with the dutch lyrics. maybe something could be added during the singing.

smellpophit ; phoebe jeebee will sing this one.

slick song ; trumpett by Pierre bastien (allready done) singing bij PJB

God is a dj ; i’m finishing this one now

Candy Floss (the last song) pjb will singh. any other suggestions ?

hey bob,

the first 4 songs on my cd are mixes ,just to give you an impression ;

1.god is a dj
2.eyeball
3.slicksong
4.smellpop

if you have any ideas   for God is a dj be my guest. it’s a strange little song like it is now.

maybe a bit static. the voice should be like it is ; a bit cranked and not too loud.

do what you want with the overdubs. not sure about the synth.

with eyeball we did a normal talking voice (and a little bit of processing with it) and some sampled voices for the long part where nothing happened much. it’s abit back in the mix now but again; do as you please.

idea; maybe we could use the crying parts of me (with the original text, off course not understandable) at the end, as a background for the talking voice of Phoebe.

for the rest i think this song should sound quite dynamic.

slicksong ; this was a bit too low for Phoebe’s voice. i still like it.

you have to decide what’s the best Pierre(trumpet)-part, there are 3 different versions on the other cd.

smellpop ; hope you like it as much as i do. it needs some backing vocals and maybe something else.

fear ; we just did some accordeon and a bit of organ.

the takes ;

5.eyeball – backing vocals
6.eyeball- lead
7.fear – accordeon
8.fear – organ
9. goddj – hammond and bass organ
10. goddj – voice and acoordeon
11. goddj – other organ
12. goddj – synth
13.slicksong – vocals
14.smellpophit – vocals

i hope i did some reasonable overdubs. please let me know what i did wrong if so.

cheers mate

lukas