BoxKite is the project of Kansas City musician Bob Stewart. This project was started in earnest in 2000 with the expressed desire to explore the colors and forms of jazz and electronic music within the context of indie rock. BoxKite experiments with form rather than without form, as a kind of experimenting traditionalism or a progressive conservatism. BoxKite does not strive to defy or ignore musical boundaries. Instead, they explore the details and implications of those boundaries; bending, twisting, and finding relationships between seemingly disparate musical elements. BoxKite’s first collection of songs entitled soundings was released in late 2005.
"One step beyond is the direction by which creative man has been moving since time began. Speaking for myself as a…musician, part of my satisfaction, musically, has been avoiding musical ruts and searching for fresh material to work with." - Jackie McLean, jazz musician
Bob describes the path that led to the Boxkite project:
"After writing, playing, and performing conventional indie-rock songs in various bands in the Lawrence/Kansas City area for seven years, I found myself in a musical rut. Musically, I was taking few risks and was in danger of simply repeating what I, and many others, have already done. Even the "alternative" and "independent" music on the radio and in the clubs at the time seemed to be taking few risks and breaking no new ground. For me, traditional rock music had become a well-worn rut offering few surprises. For these reasons I turned away from rock music for the next two years and began to discover and learn about jazz.
I am not a jazz musician nor would I consider my music to be jazz; far from it. However, jazz has greatly influenced my conception of music. Jazz opened my eyes to many musical "colors" and structures that I never realized existed. I wanted to incorporate some of these jazz colors and structures into my own rock music palette.
I also began to investigate the compositions of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and the ambient works of Brian Eno. This, in turn, led to an interest in the modern electronica of such artists as Autechre, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, and Squarepusher. I found several elements in these Minimal and/or electronic music styles that were very appealing. First, their use of a wide variety of sounds (both natural and unnatural) completely breaks the chains of the traditional rock sound palette. Second, the use of non-linear song structures is a refreshing and stimulating change from the usual "verse-chorus-verse" pattern found in popular song. These colors and structures from the Minimalist and electronic styles also found their way into my working palette of sounds."