THE KINBOTES 
The Kinbotes 
(Slowboy) 

The Kinbotes are named after the protagonist of Nabakov’s famously tricksy Pale Fire – a novel sneakily masquerading as an annotated poem. The Kinbotes isn’t anywhere near as ingenious, but you can see why these two art school kids plumped for the name: The Kinbotes is an album of no-fi bedroom pop with a lightly-played postmodern streak. 

Formed at art college just outside of Philadelphia, The Kinbotes brought together a determined non-musician (Nat Hirsch) and a trained guitarist (David Cateforis). Recorded in a dorm room, The Kinbotes is unapologetically scrappy, full of bum notes and iffy tunings, but highly charming nonetheless. The presentation is sometimes wilfully cruddy – try ‘Gingerbread Man”s mangled jangle- but much of The Kinbotes’ charm comes down to its open-hearted songwriting: ‘Julie Don’t Care’ successfully mimics Transformer-era Lou Reed, and ‘Like A Movie’ is just adorable. The air of enthusiastic amateurism makes up for some of the ropier tracks, and the rough production – it’s essentially a glorified demo tape – works to its advantage. 

Sadly, Hirsch suffered a head injury in a car accident in the mid-1990s, and eventually took his own life. This maiden reissue arrives through German label Slowboy, and is limited to 200 copies.