The interplay between Hermansen’s guitar and Moen’s Rhodes is both dark and joyful at the same time. It’s the sound of music emerging from a primordial swamp, dark and mysterious, and evolving into a delicious jazz behemoth. Second track This Immortal Coil slows things down with doomy sludge riffing and menacing bass, combined with Chick Corea-style Rhodes explorations, and Red Kite stretch out unencumbered by expectation. The experience of this quartet is considerable, combining talents of well known Norwegian progressive outfits such as Elephant9, Shining, Bushman’s Revenge and Grand General, and in Red Kite the emphasis seems to be on improvisation within a composed framework, and the chemistry is readily evident. It’s almost like two songs overlaying each other, and yet Astrology (The One True Science) works somehow, resolving beautifully, the overall impression from this frantic opening salvo being that nothing is quite what it seems, or what you expected, and it sets the scene for more unexpected twists and juxtaposed styles as we venture further. And yet not everyone is on the same page, as guitarist and composer Even Helte Hermansen finds room to settle into a jaunty melody, supported by Bernt André Moen on Rhodes. Red Kite kick off their second album (after 2019’s self-titled debut) at a blistering pace with drummer Torstein Lofthus threatening to destroy his kit in a savage fit of petulance, egged on by the hammering bass of Trond Frøne, and it sounds as though all hell is breaking loose in Athletic Studios, Halden in Norway. With all the misinformation on social media, and conspiracy theories abounding, I guess it’s understandable that people see connections that simply aren’t there, as they try to make sense of a senseless world. Because of this, the birds are still listed as Amber on the conservation lists.ĭespite this, this beautiful and resilient bird is still making positive progress.For yet another album conceived during lockdown, Red Kite have come up with a great title, Apophenian Bliss. In fact, poison is the largest cause of death among the Red Kite population in England, and this is dramatically slowing the rate of population growth. However, many are poisoned by bait left for foxes or crows, or are poisoned due to pesticides and rodenticides. Red Kites are still under a special protection status, with prison sentences and fines for any offence against the birds or their nests. While most of the Red Kites you see today are reintroduced, there is still a small population in Wales which are descended from the last breading pair from the early 20th century. Populations were established in both countries and there are now around 1600 breeding pairs across the UK – half of which are outside of Wales. However, the RSBP and NCC met in 1986 to discuss the reintroduction of the Red Kite to England and Scotland, and the process began in the early 1990s with huge success. Poor habitat and food, in addition to a devastating disease outbreak in the 1950s, meant that the bird was unlikely to naturally spread outside of Wales. This is now the longest continuous conservation programme in the world. To combat this almost complete extinction of the Red Kite in the UK, a conservation programme was creating in 1903 to try and protect them. In Wales there was only one remaining breeding pair in the 1930s. This was so damaging that the once-prized Red Kite was entirely extinct in England and Scotland by the 1870s. By the mid-1800s the bird had become the target of bounty hunters, poaching for taxidermy, and thieves who sold their eggs to collectors. Famers and game-keepers mistakenly accused them of killing their animals, and bounties were placed on them. By the 1600s, Kites had become so widespread that they were labelled as vermin. Killing a Red Kite could even result in capital punishment. In the Medieval Era, the Red Kite was prized in the UK as a street-cleaning scavenger and was protected by royal decree. We decided to get to know our red-feathered namesake a little better in a two-part blog. On the brink of extinction in the UK at the turn of the twentieth century, and with the longest continuous conservation effort in the world, the Red Kite has a complex history and exciting future.

The red kite