Artist description Perpetrating horrendous droning guitar overload one moment, then dropping guitars altogether to employ dueling basses or synths the next, Kid Sniper cannot be fixed in one single mode. Their music may appeal to fans of Trans Am, Stereolab, Hüsker Dü, Kraftwerk, Pavement, Wire, Brian Eno, Blonde Redhead, Can, Gang Of Four, The Sea And Cake, Mercury Rev or Joy Division… then again, they don’t fit in too cozily with any of the above.

Music Style Post-punk electro-pop for media-saturated miscreants

Musical Influences Can, Miles Davis, King Tubby, The Stooges, Joy Division, The Velvet Underground, Mission Of Burma, Wire, Gang Of Four

Similar Artists Sonic Youth, Stereolab, The Sea And Cake, Trans Am, Mercury Rev, Tortoise, Appliance, Parts Unknown, Hüsker Dü

Artist History Both a “band” and a “solo project”, Kid Sniper was started in early 1998 by songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Jonny Dovercourt (ex-Secret Agent, A Tuesday Weld; now also Christiana, Currently In These United States). Others from Jonny’s circle of musician friends soon entered the fray, and the line-up has remained solid since August 1999. The current quartet is rounded out by synth/sample scientist Paul Boddum (Christiana), bass/synth hitter Alex Durlak (The Connoisseurs) and drummer/jazzbo Dean Wales (ex-Secret Agent). Kid Sniper’s first release. Vantage Point, is the product of a long-term home-recording session, overseen by engineer/guru Jeff McMurrich (Deepspace, Danko Jones). The bed tracks were captured quickly on a Tascam four-track, and then transf erred to Cubase VST on a Mac computer, for several months of painstaking overdubs. The result is a curious fusion of lo-fi and hi-fi — ragged yet precise, lush yet cozy. Currently, the Sniper is finishing up mixing their second album, Landlocked, recorded entirely in the Pro Tools environment by Alex Durlak. The new record is more of a mood piece, with a more minimalistic, direct approach than its predecessorc

Group Members Jonny Dovercourt (bass, guitar, synth, voice), Sara C. Montgomery (guitar, voice), Paul Boddum (synth, tapes), Craig Fraid (bass), Dean Wales (drums)F

Instruments electric basses, electric guitars, old synths, cheap keyboards, manual sample & voice manipulation, tape deck, maracas, drum kit

Albums Vantage Point

Press Reviews CD review (Vantage Point): Let me introduce Kid Sniper, a mighty tyke of four, that wield hooks and esoterica like the LAPD wield nightsticks. When “Activation Sequence” kicks it off, I feel as though I’m hearing a missed gem of a Dinosaur outtake. Or better yet, a Hüsker Dü track that made a successful attempt at keyboard use. ‘Former Child Star’ only strengthens my resolve that this is indeed so. By the time “Site-Specific” and “Calista Flockhart” (a song with single potential written all over it) have come and gone, you’ll be finding that this is a disc destined for frequent flyer miles on your player. Kid Sniper has this unreal knack for great, catchy guitar and keyboard driven choruses, and equally tasteful and hooky vocals. To top it off, there is t his amazing tone of voice in the lyrics that express a haughty, high-brow exasperation as much as a love of pure juvenile fun. This isn’t some glib attempt at appeasing a local band either… this CD is that good. Kid Sniper is a band of musicians that know their music so well and have enough respect for the medium that if it wasn’t worth it, they wouldn’t have done it. Well, maybe. -- Stephen Dohnberg, burningink.com. Live review (Lee’s Palace, Toronto, Aug. 11, 2000): Kid Sniper took up position, took aim and boom! It was the pleasant surprise of the night. While the new CD Vantage Point has decidedly traditional approaches trod on the path to very strong songwriting, the live act veers away from this and perhaps they have simply evolved since the recordin g of the LP. They emplyed a dual keyboard, dual bass attack, and provided several auditory allusions to a number of very creative acts that straddle the analog and digital realm. The new numbers in particular (for which I have no titles) recall Pole’s les s dub-like sounds, Trans Am’s more punkish, and Hüsker Dü’s more experimental… which is all good in my books. You’ll have to excuse the falling-back on comparisons, but it being my first time seeing and hearing the Kid, we all need some handy points of re ference. -- Stephen Dohnberg, burningink.com. Live preview (Dante’s Lounge, Hamilton, Oct. 21, 2000): “Get set for activation/ this is not a simulation,” advises Jonathan Bunce on “Activation Sequence”, the lead track from the band’s Vantage Point, an extr aordinarily well-developed debut. And the idea of play, of fun, of action is central to Kid Sniper’s musical outlook. Keep moving. Alter your trajectory. Discard your watch. Burn down your bad days. The music’s regular, forward drone-drive both mimics the pulse of machinery or modern convenience and links the band to its obvious influences/forebears: Kraftwerk, Wire, Gang Of Four, Trans Am, Pavement, Blonde Redhead, Hüsker Dü… the list goes on. In each case, the resemblance is fleeting, a mask worn to fur ther the play. The whole thing is enveloped in a fizzy translucence, the possible by-product of a recording process that leaned equally on Tascam and Cubase, making for a listening experience that’s equally synthetic and organic. The band -- songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Bunce, “synth/sample scientist” Paul Boddum, “bass/synth hitter” Alex Durlak and “drummer/jazzbo” Dean Wales — seems a good fit, and their mesh of hip influences and dippy disregard for matters serious make them an interesting prospect. -- David Young, View weekly (Hamilton). Live preview (Bumpers, Ottawa, Dec. 9, 2000): Taking aim at just about everything, by Stephen Flood. Often the most interesting music comes from ideas of juxtaposition, mixing styles that do not seem entirely congruous. Jonathan Bunce, mainman behind the Toronto-based project Kid Sniper, subscribes to this philosophy completely, both in his music and in the artwork of his Vantage Point CD. “The front cover,” which is a shot of blurred car lights on a two-lane highway in Toronto, “was not meant to be a romanticizing of the open road, since I think cars are basically evil,” muses Bunce. “It was more that I wanted to make a comment about urban sprawl. The inside however (which is a shot of a woman staring a beautiful, di stant horizon), is more about light and hope, so the two images capture the duality of life I find so interesting.” Sprawl could also be used to describe the sound of Kid Sniper, which at one turn might comprise primarily guitar drones, at the next duell ing basses and synths, and then perhaps finishing with the sound of guitars pushed processed to the breaking point. Reflecting such influences as Can, Gang of Four, Joy Division, The Sea and Cake, Kraftwerk and Wire, this universe of sonic possibilities is something Bunce came upon as cure for the malaise he was feeling in his previous band, Secret Agent. “Toward the end of that group I felt stagnant, like we weren’t really getting anything done,” Bunce recalls. “I couldn’t get anywhere near the sounds I was hearing in my head because we were limited to the format we found ourselves in as a band.” Embracing technology was a major stepping-stone in Bunce’s road to musical freedom. Along with band members Paul Boddum (synth/samples), Alex Durlak (bass/synth) and Dean Wales (drums), Bunce has been able to walk the tightrope between man- and machine-made music in a very creative way. “All the tracks were played and recorded by me first, at home to four-track demo,” explains Bunce. “Much later, the band re-re corded some of those tracks to four-track, using those demos as a template. That was then dumped into the Cubase program, where things were tweaked and sounds were added or layered. The music has not been resequenced, however, so the live framework of eac h song is still very present.” Lyrically, Bunce is also inclined to a straightforward, while slightly skewed approach. The most noticeable instance of this is on the song “Too Cute to Compute,” a rant delivered via a payphone near the studio. “I was watch ing the people in the area around MuchMusic on Queen Street, noticing that they were mostly suburban kids who had suddenly become fashionable,” says Bunce. “That rant, then, grew out of how I perceived that this profusion of superficiality was all that re mained of what was once an interesting, alternative area.” And while the name of the project might sit well with the nature of social commentaries such as the one in “Too Cute to Compute”, it contains a much more esoteric slant than that message of undisg uised vitriol. “One day I saw this Toronto Sun headline, ‘Kid Snipers Kill Five,’ and for some reason it appealed to my sick sense of humour,” Bunce says with a laugh. “There’s also this implied notion in society that you have to knock people down or pick them off so that you can get ahead, but I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I guess I’m really just a kid sniper in an adult world.” -- Ottawa Xpress. MP3.com review: Nice mix of guitars and a little electronica. Found these guys while looking for similar Trans Am artists! Sounds like: Sonic Youth, Trans Am. TMS Rating: 7.5 -- The Mind Step e-zine, Australia http://communities.ninemsn.com.au/theMindstePEMegaFanzineIssue2Vol2. Live preview, The Toronto Star (Clinton's, Dec. 19, 2001): It's a mini-mid-week indie-rock-a-go-go on Bloor St. tonight: Eclectic local ensemble Kid Sniper bashes out burbling electro-pop and and the odd, sweet burst of noise at Clinton's with Just Like The Movies. -- Ben Rayner

Location Toronto, Ontario - Canada

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).