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Artist
Charles Allison
12+ albums
about
Charles Allison really started making records in 1997 on a cassette 4-track machine in a big old house he shared with his siblings. For those songs and for the many songs he would write and record in the years following, he adopted the Kil Howlie Day moniker (a reference to an unofficial schoolboy holiday in Hawai’i, one of several places the Allison family was stationed during Charles’ youth). From the very start, the Kil Howlie Day songs were infectious. Something about the timbre of Charles’ voice made them both sad and fun at once. His guitar-playing style was diverse, swaying from the type of cranky snap I associate with early Liz Phair and Billy Bragg to the rounded pop of more-recent XTC. His lyrics were clever, his hooks were memorable, and his perfectionism was everywhere obvious. Quickly, Charles began filling out the Kil Howlie Day sound by training himself on various instruments, experimenting with various electronic devices, and amassing an arsenal of home-recording knowledge and equipment. Charles also invited some other really talented guys to play on some material; most notably, Matt Turnure became the Kil Howlie Day drummer in 1999, touring with Charles and bassist Jeremy Carriger for “One Finger Ad-Lib” in the summer of 2000. The touring incarnation of Kil Howlie Day recorded “Songs Like Circadian Rhythms” that same year. This third Kil Howlie Day record was the densest, prettiest work Charles had yet produced. It is marked by a desert loneliness reminiscen
