Kyle Bates is a West Coast based audiovisual artist, composer, and writer. He actively creates and performs in the self-recording project Drowse and has produced a range of releases for The Flenser, Whited Sepulchre Records, The Native Sound, Glowing Window Recordings, Apneic Void, and Television. His audio work has been referred to as “intimate” by NPR and “the aural equivalent of blood rushing back to a sleeping limb” by Vice, while his video work has been characterized as “dark” by Spin. Pitchfork has positioned him within “a grand tradition of Pacific Northwestern gloom.” Bates is focused on exploring sound in tangible spaces, the bipolar experience, and making personal internal worlds public through sonic metaphor and autofiction techniques; he is influenced by Roland Barthes’s practice of reading the self as text. He plays with themes of memory, shame, detachment, sleep, death, fear, and human connection. His practice has included sound, video, and text-based performances, installations, film and video game scores, and various writings. Bates has presented and performed work at festivals, spaces, and galleries in parts of Europe, Japan, Mexico, and across the United States. He holds an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College and a DMA with a focus on sound art and recording from the California Institute of the Arts.
For inquiries and booking email Kyle at drowseportland@gmail.com