Released:
1995, Tekweni Music Company, TEK007

Website:
Syd Kitchen

The creation of CITY CHILD was a difficult yet beautiful experience to go through.

Started almost by default in early 1988, the album went through several stop/start phases before its eventual completion. The rhythm section was recorded “live” in February 1988 before it went into storage for a period. It was taken in and out of the cupboard between 1991 and 1994 as music was added, before finally emerging to excellent countrywide reviews in 1995.
 
It was also difficult to do in so far as the subject matter I was writing about was concerned. Some of the songs had been written as early as 1975, and some while the album was being made. I was going through a seriously tough time of personal shit that all helped shape the course of the work. This introspective spin, and the quality of the (mainly jazz) musicians involved, contributed to the album’s eventual ambiance; 10 tight little quirky “jazz” tunes. 

Recorded at Selby’s Studio in Kwazulu Natal, it was engineered by Ron Selby, assisted by Marc Duby. Initially recorded with a Fostex 16 track analogue machine, the album was digitally processed and engineered by Jurgen Brauninger at the University of Natal’s Gerald Lapierre Studio, before being mastered in Stuttgart Germany by Matthias Schnieder-Hollek. It was distributed at the outset by Tic Tic Bang and marketed by Total Exposure, before being given over to Nebula Bos in 1998. Then I got it back – hooray!
-- Syd Kitchen