Fire in the Kitchen - Glow EP

Fire in the Kitchen – Glow EP

Walt Records, 1993

Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008

Price: $.25

 

Fire in the Kitchen is a mystery. I can barely find any information about them on the internet, and the blurb for this 2x7” on the little mail-order insert reads: “Out of Winter’s laboring pain comes this four song EP from NYC’s reclusive guitar outfit. The most recent recordings from this quartet of tall, skinny, well read individuals.” The mail-order insert also advertises the early Mountain Goats cassettes on Shrimper and 7”s by Versus, Nothing Painted Blue, and Sebadoh. The insert boasts “Book prepared by MAIL-ORDER MEN, Not by College Professors” for a reason that may or may not be an inside joke. Other than Fire in the Kitchen being from NYC, Discogs informs me that they released two additional 7”s, a full-length (1990’s Theory of Everything) and a compilation. I am dismayed because Glow is absolutely fantastic. It’s an inspired blend of chiming college rock, proto-math rock, a dusting of post-punk and some surprisingly tuneful melodies. It looks like the guys in the band didn’t do much after Fire in the Kitchen, which is heartbreaking because this is the sort of bread-and-butter early-to-mid-90s indie rock that I could listen to all goddamn day. Sometimes it feels like bands go out of their way to maintain a false sense of mystery when there are tons and tons of bands just like this that had a few releases in the 90s and dropped off the face of the earth.

I couldn't track down any samples, but you can acquire Fire in the Kitchen's 3 EPs and their teriffic full length Theory of Everything over at Wilfully Obscure.