Travel Kit returns with its first extended release in a handful of years with the album Anywhere (released September 17, 2026). The title track hearkens back to an era when lo-fi DIY electronic music and indie rock crossed paths for a refreshing and playful sound. The sampled/programmed drums are steady and gentle and the sequenced melodies layered with wordless vocals lilting from a seeming near distance like someone calling out to sea for the sunrise in the early morning. The spoken word samples ending in an echoing “Anywhere” when the song drifts off beatless for some countless moments feels like holding on to a timeless memory that won’t end before the beat comes back in to carry us further into the song. Musically it resonates with the dreamlike and retrofuturist sounds of Boards of Canada but also the spiritual ambient haze of the self-titled Burial album. Co-produced by Jack Truax from the band and Chris Bowers-Castillo of Kiltro fame, the song and album has a truly entrancing effect Listen to “Anywhere” on YouTube and follow Travel Kit at the links below.
Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.
Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.
Listen to our interview with Chris Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp and catch Kiltro live at its album release show at the Mercury Café on June 1, 2023 with Nina De Freitas,on tour throughout the USA in June, July, August and September with a stop in Denver on August 25 for the VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf. For more information on Kiltro including live dates and to pre-order Underbelly please visit kiltromusic.com.
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