Red Kite

The band played their first gig in 2014, and released their first record in 2019, originally focusing on more or less straight jazz rock from the 70’s. However, this focus naturally started to shift over time, towards more 60’s jazz like Alice Coltrane – only, of course played with electric instruments, by lovers of very loud, heavy music. 

Their second record, Apophenian Bliss, was released on Rare Noise in 2021, and the band started touring more for the first time, even thought it was in the middle of the pandemic, thus further refining their own musical vision. Tempos became somewhat slower, while the shows became louder and longer, inspiring tounge in cheek catch phrases like “jazz – for, and by rockers”, and “doom jazz”. 

In 2023 and 2024 the band started collaborating and doing some shows with long another long time friend, saxophonist Gisle Johansen. Johansen, already a legend of the Norwegian jazz scene since the 90’s, inspiring bands like Atomic and The Thing through his work with his own band Element, brought even more power, along with an acoustic edge in the vein of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders to the proceedings, as well as being a long time Slayer fan. Big smiles were seen on stage, and this was also meant to be the line-up heading into the band’s third record. 

In 2025, as the band were getting ready to get back into the studio, they were dealt a major blow: After a couple of postponements, Bernt Moen finally head to step down due to health issues. This was very a sad thing for everybody involved. As this also happened only a few days before the recordings were scheduled, and panic started to set in, the band were lucky enough to get yet another old friend, the one only Ståle Storløkken, to fill in. This album turns down the volume ever so slightly, and will be entitled This Too Shall Pass, and released in June 2026, marking the band’s first release on Norwegian label IsItJazz? Records. The band has also decided to proceed as quartet going forward with Gisle Johansen – leaving the piano stool empty in honour of their friend, should he ever get better.

A lot has happened lately, a new album, a new label, renewed enthusiasm, and with a by this point already proven new line-up, Red Kite in this new chapter, looks ahead to the future with great excitement, reckless abandon, and their mission not yet completed!