“Like all the best punk, Avalanche Kaito’s music is confrontational and abrasive, but also playful and with a great sense of fun.” Songlines
Someone has described Avalanche Kaito as “grrriot_punk_noise”. Burkinabe singer Kaito Winse, the guardian of the ancestral griot tradition, rubs shoulders with the multiform approaches of drummer and “pure dataïst” Benjamin Chaval and anarcho-guitarist Nico Gitto in an explosive combination. The project seems in many ways unique in the musical landscape, managing to combine both a seductive trance power and a wicked experimental side.
The band was noticed from their first concerts in Belgium in July 2021. A real craze followed, which brought them to several European countries and to Canada during the following months, performing more than fifty times in festivals and clubs.
In 2022, the band released their first EP, Dabalomuni, followed by a homonymous album, both on Glitterbeat. Also performing in several showcase festivals like MIL or ESNS, the band generates a real word-of-mouth movement. Everywhere, professionals and audiences receive them as a new sensation.
In 2022, Grammy commissioned Avalanche Kaito to make a live video that was broadcast on the networks of the prestigious institution. In March 2023 KEXP released a live session shot at ESNS in January and The Wire published a feature about the band. This year, the band continued to scour the festival circuit, crossing the Channel twice (Supersonic, End of the Road…). End-of-year highlight: WOMEX.
In 2024, they released their second album Talitakum via Glitterbeat and have been on tour again all around Europe and beyond.
“Freaked, juddering electronic punk.” The Wire
Avalanche Kaito is a fully functional hardcore transmission, channelling solid state spirits in abrasive, glitching tongues. Winse yelps and declaims refixed elder scrolls, Chaval and Gitto initiate the launch phase on broken mech-punk rockets, and the whole affair gives the impression of exigent new rituals being improvised at the edge of panic.” The Wire
“….remarkable for the way it pushes into unexpected territories…. There are clear reference points for every track on Avalanche Kaito, both traditional and experimental in nature. Yet its particular blend is, at bare minimum, a road less traveled. The world may be getting smaller all the time, but as illustrated here, the sonic possibilities that come along with that are only growing.” The Quietus
