Started in 1999 as a way to record and archive the music their friends were making, Asthmatic Kitty, since its inception, has grown to host an impressive roster of off the path indie pop. Named after a found cat that wheezed and coughed its way into the founder’s heart, Asthmatic Kitty was originally based in Holland Michigan. It has since split into various places across the U.S. Musically, this label delivers the goods from bands like Bunky: a rock outfit, that creates a warm surging wall of guitar and steady drums, the female singer unleashes high crooner purrs and pitch strange inflections. Another band is Half-Handed cloud: a synth-pop orchestration with a Beach Boys feel, deep warm harmonies, harmonies like a sun drenched field and a highly playful almost toy-like quality to the drum machines and plucked guitars. Shapes and Sizes makes melodic pop, yet they don’t so much make music as they do strange enigmatic mood rooms full of elusive noises, shifts in sound, spontaneous surprises. Sufjan Stevens is a singer songwriter of melodic psychedelic folk, reminds one of nick drake with a fuller, spacey sound. He is slated to make an album about each of our 50 states, and already he has Illinois and Michigan under his belt. If you like sparse arrangements, emotional quivering vocals half sung half mumbled, songs that feel more like fragments than full pieces all mixed in with a deep gothic originality you would do well to check out the Castanets. Think Will Oldham mixed with an unplugged later day Sonic Youth playing for neighbors on the back porch.
This is the kind of label where the music speaks for itself. It doesn’t need any big write ups or promotional wizardly, just let the kids play, and let the people hear them.
OTHER BANDS ON THE LABEL, THE CURTAINS, SHAPES AND SIZES, LIV JAMES, THE BRIGHTEST DIAMOND.