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KIT N C.L.A.W.S.
This Is The Kit is the project of Kate Stables, born in England and based in Paris. They first gained notice due to heavy radio play on BBC 6 - and have twice had LPs named to 6 Music’s Album Of The Year lists. Later they gained more notice as a hand-picked opening act for The National, Iron & Wine, Jose Gonzalez, Sharon Van Etten and Alexi Murdoch - musicians who share a similar independent streak and warm-hearted approach to creating modern yet timeless music. In North America, they are regulars on US Triple A radio stations like KEXP, indie folk festival line-ups, and tastemaking platforms such as NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.
In the years since ‘Wriggle Out the Restless’ was released in 2010, This Is The Kit have continued to gain momentum. Their 2015 follow-up album, ‘Bashed Out’, was made with The National’s Aaron Dessner (producer for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons). Stables then sang on The National’s 2019 album/film ‘I Am Easy To Find’ and became a touring member on subsequent live dates. Finally, in 2020, ‘Bashed Out’’s title track became a streaming hit after an impactful needle drop in a key episode of Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ series.
For fans of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Beth Orton, Sharon van Etten, Bon Iver, Father John Misty, Joni Mitchell, Sam Amidon, Anais Mitchell.
This is the first time ‘Wriggle Out the Restless’ has been widely available on vinyl.
In the years since ‘Wriggle Out the Restless’ was released in 2010, This Is The Kit have continued to gain momentum. Their 2015 follow-up album, ‘Bashed Out’, was made with The National’s Aaron Dessner (producer for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons). Stables then sang on The National’s 2019 album/film ‘I Am Easy To Find’ and became a touring member on subsequent live dates. Finally, in 2020, ‘Bashed Out’’s title track became a streaming hit after an impactful needle drop in a key episode of Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ series.
For fans of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Beth Orton, Sharon van Etten, Bon Iver, Father John Misty, Joni Mitchell, Sam Amidon, Anais Mitchell.
This is the first time ‘Wriggle Out the Restless’ has been widely available on vinyl.
TRACK LISTING
Sometimes The Sea
Easy Pickings
See Here
Waterproof
Spinney
Trick You
The Turnip
White Ash
Earthquake
Sleeping Bag
Moon
Treehouse
“‘Bashed Out’... will also likely be her breakout... get ready to hear a lot more from her.” - Stereogum
This Is The Kit is the much beloved musical project of Kate Stables, born in England and based in Paris. ‘Bashed Out’ was produced Aaron Dessner, a member of The National known for both minting indie icons (Sharon Van Etten, Local Natives) and, more recently, becoming a producer to stars like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Dessner’s former client Sharon Van Etten called This Is The Kit her “favorite new artist” in Pitchfork.
The backing band gathered for ‘Bashed Out’ combines the talents of This Is The Kit’s touring members alongside session players drawn from the Brooklyn music scene: Bryce Dessner, Thomas Bartlett (Doveman, The Gloaming), Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) and Ben Lanz (Beirut, The National) made key contributions.
Since this LP’s initial release Kate made significant contributions to The National’s 2019 album/film ‘I Am Easy To Find’ and became a touring member on subsequent live dates. In 2020, ‘Bashed Out’’s title track became a streaming hit after an impactful needle drop in a key episode of Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ series.
This music is honest, human and humane - a folky-lovely slowrumble. It’s rock but of the groovy, hangover-friendly, stoner variety. Stables’ voice hearkens back to the singer-songwriter era - her distinctive, cutting vocals up front in the mix.
The Line of Best Fit has the band as an “essential fixture of British folk music for the past 10 years… one of a handful of truly innovate songwriters working with the British folk template today.”
For fans of Joni Mitchell, Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, Father John Misty, Gillian Welch, Laura Marling, Natalie Prass, Jose Gonzalez.
This is the first time ‘Bashed Out’ has been widely available on vinyl since 2019.
This Is The Kit is the much beloved musical project of Kate Stables, born in England and based in Paris. ‘Bashed Out’ was produced Aaron Dessner, a member of The National known for both minting indie icons (Sharon Van Etten, Local Natives) and, more recently, becoming a producer to stars like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Dessner’s former client Sharon Van Etten called This Is The Kit her “favorite new artist” in Pitchfork.
The backing band gathered for ‘Bashed Out’ combines the talents of This Is The Kit’s touring members alongside session players drawn from the Brooklyn music scene: Bryce Dessner, Thomas Bartlett (Doveman, The Gloaming), Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) and Ben Lanz (Beirut, The National) made key contributions.
Since this LP’s initial release Kate made significant contributions to The National’s 2019 album/film ‘I Am Easy To Find’ and became a touring member on subsequent live dates. In 2020, ‘Bashed Out’’s title track became a streaming hit after an impactful needle drop in a key episode of Netflix’s ‘Sex Education’ series.
This music is honest, human and humane - a folky-lovely slowrumble. It’s rock but of the groovy, hangover-friendly, stoner variety. Stables’ voice hearkens back to the singer-songwriter era - her distinctive, cutting vocals up front in the mix.
The Line of Best Fit has the band as an “essential fixture of British folk music for the past 10 years… one of a handful of truly innovate songwriters working with the British folk template today.”
For fans of Joni Mitchell, Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, Father John Misty, Gillian Welch, Laura Marling, Natalie Prass, Jose Gonzalez.
This is the first time ‘Bashed Out’ has been widely available on vinyl since 2019.
TRACK LISTING
Misunderstanding
Silver John
Spores All Settling
Magic Spell
Bashed Out
All In Cahoots
Nits
Vitamins
We Are In
Cold And Got Colder
Mr Beatnick & Richard Greenan present their debut full length collaboration, "Coasty". Brought together by their twin residencies on NTS Radio, the duo have forged distinct paths in respective scenes over the last decade - as producers, DJs and label heads of imprints Mythstery and Kit Records.
The strength of their partnership is built on contrasting styles; Mr Beatnick's sound orbits the woozier fringes of house and hip-hop, while Richard Greenan has settled in the cracks between ambient, textural experimentation and the avant-garde. Here, these approaches coalesce in unexpected ways - with violin, harp, guitar and saxophone finding themselves serrated by volleys of percussion and punchily melodic bass.
With much of the music recorded during the pair's residency in Margate, the album documents a weekend toasted and skewed progressively sideways. The opening salvo of cascading synth muscle ("Goodnight Mush") and fragmented acoustic stepper ("Superb Crafty Gardens") could evoke Devo and Pete Rock breaking fried toast over a dirty fry up. Side A's pop sensibilities peak on the lucidly string-laden "Harbour Arms", complete with pristine guest vocal by bb sway.
Then, like the work of a pair of pissed beavers, things start to get pretty weird. Familiar structures ferment laterally, from the midi swamp-hop of "Bellows of the Earth", to the cooked techno-funk stylings of "Bronze Pears". "How to Draw Roger" offers a magma-like credits roll, the sun's purple yolk poached over a hoppy sea of amber.
The strength of their partnership is built on contrasting styles; Mr Beatnick's sound orbits the woozier fringes of house and hip-hop, while Richard Greenan has settled in the cracks between ambient, textural experimentation and the avant-garde. Here, these approaches coalesce in unexpected ways - with violin, harp, guitar and saxophone finding themselves serrated by volleys of percussion and punchily melodic bass.
With much of the music recorded during the pair's residency in Margate, the album documents a weekend toasted and skewed progressively sideways. The opening salvo of cascading synth muscle ("Goodnight Mush") and fragmented acoustic stepper ("Superb Crafty Gardens") could evoke Devo and Pete Rock breaking fried toast over a dirty fry up. Side A's pop sensibilities peak on the lucidly string-laden "Harbour Arms", complete with pristine guest vocal by bb sway.
Then, like the work of a pair of pissed beavers, things start to get pretty weird. Familiar structures ferment laterally, from the midi swamp-hop of "Bellows of the Earth", to the cooked techno-funk stylings of "Bronze Pears". "How to Draw Roger" offers a magma-like credits roll, the sun's purple yolk poached over a hoppy sea of amber.
TRACK LISTING
1. Goodnight Mush
2. Superb Crafty Garden
3. Harbour Arms (feat. Bb Sway)
4. Bellows Of The Earth
5. Sad Brasstard
6. Bronze Pears
7. To Sea Is To Be
8. How To Draw Roger
Repress of This Is The Kit's first album, to coincide with the release of their new album "Careful of your Keepers".
This Is The Kit's first album was recorded in Italy and produced by John Parish. It originally had a limited vinyl release on Microbe Records in 2007.
Featuring Kate Stables - vocals, guitar and banjo; John Parish - drums; Julien Barbagalo - drums; Jamie Whitby Coles - drums; Jesse Morningstar - violin, guitar, vocals, percussion.
This Is The Kit's first album was recorded in Italy and produced by John Parish. It originally had a limited vinyl release on Microbe Records in 2007.
Featuring Kate Stables - vocals, guitar and banjo; John Parish - drums; Julien Barbagalo - drums; Jamie Whitby Coles - drums; Jesse Morningstar - violin, guitar, vocals, percussion.
TRACK LISTING
Side A
1.Our Socks Forever More
2.Creeping Up Our Shins
3.Shared Out
4.Birchwood Beaker
5.With Her Wheels Again
6.Two Wooden Spoons
Side B
1.We Need Our Knees
2.Moths
3.Krülle Bol
4.Greasy Goose
5.Tangled Walker
6.She Does
The illustrious, London-based duo Kit Sebastian, aka Kit Martin and Merve Erdem, return with a limited edition 7" single.
It features 'L'addio', a breakbeat driven, sultry ballad, and 'Hayat', a hazy, psychedelic scorcher that delves into the band's Turkish and Azerbaijan influences.
'L'addio' saw the band perfecting their production and orchestration, with strings, horns and double bass, and an Italian synth found in a French dump.The music was greatly influenced by Italian soundtracks and Italian female singers, such as Mina or Rita Pavone.The track announces itself with a break that is guaranteed to get samplers twitching. The tone of the melody and lyrics is heartfelt and aching. It has a beautiful, intimate sadness like the closing scenes to a love affair, and it exquisitely rides over the slow, psych-funk-dramatic backing track. The lyrics are inspired by a flatopposite Merve's window that's occupied by drug addicts, with many guests coming in and out every night. Merve elaborated "Being both neighbours and strangers, and with the boredom of a post- tour everyday domestic life and a pinch of urban voyeurism, it was hard not to wonder what was happening in that flat. The words imagine an addict before her/his golden shot as if it's a love relationship between them that comes to an end."
Having spent much of 2022 touring and writing, 'Hayat' was the first original composition the band recorded since their October 2021 album, 'Melodi'. Here we see them weaving a psychedelic tapestry of Mugham melodies, organ- driven grooves, and jazz- pop harmonies in classic Kit Sebastian fashion. Recorded to Fostex 1/4" tape, the essence of the production is perfectly balanced between being brand new and retro, which is a feat very hard to pull off.
'Hayat' is sung in Turkish and the title translates as 'Life' in English. The song examines our desire to find one's place in the world and the provisionality of existence. Merve's searching lyrics ask"Where are you? Where is the universe?".Her vocal delivery perfectly reflects the lyrical focus, its texture is probing and ethereal, almost as if sung from looking above us.
It features 'L'addio', a breakbeat driven, sultry ballad, and 'Hayat', a hazy, psychedelic scorcher that delves into the band's Turkish and Azerbaijan influences.
'L'addio' saw the band perfecting their production and orchestration, with strings, horns and double bass, and an Italian synth found in a French dump.The music was greatly influenced by Italian soundtracks and Italian female singers, such as Mina or Rita Pavone.The track announces itself with a break that is guaranteed to get samplers twitching. The tone of the melody and lyrics is heartfelt and aching. It has a beautiful, intimate sadness like the closing scenes to a love affair, and it exquisitely rides over the slow, psych-funk-dramatic backing track. The lyrics are inspired by a flatopposite Merve's window that's occupied by drug addicts, with many guests coming in and out every night. Merve elaborated "Being both neighbours and strangers, and with the boredom of a post- tour everyday domestic life and a pinch of urban voyeurism, it was hard not to wonder what was happening in that flat. The words imagine an addict before her/his golden shot as if it's a love relationship between them that comes to an end."
Having spent much of 2022 touring and writing, 'Hayat' was the first original composition the band recorded since their October 2021 album, 'Melodi'. Here we see them weaving a psychedelic tapestry of Mugham melodies, organ- driven grooves, and jazz- pop harmonies in classic Kit Sebastian fashion. Recorded to Fostex 1/4" tape, the essence of the production is perfectly balanced between being brand new and retro, which is a feat very hard to pull off.
'Hayat' is sung in Turkish and the title translates as 'Life' in English. The song examines our desire to find one's place in the world and the provisionality of existence. Merve's searching lyrics ask"Where are you? Where is the universe?".Her vocal delivery perfectly reflects the lyrical focus, its texture is probing and ethereal, almost as if sung from looking above us.
STAFF COMMENTS
Matt says: Absolutely perfect for summer, "Hayat" has an air of Khruangbin and Surprise Chef about it, albeit with a wild Turkish keyboard solo halfway through. L'addio drapes long dresses and dim lights over its late afternoon haze - a sexy poolside smoocher to top of a perfect day paddling in the shallows with your loved one.
This Is The Kit, the group led by Paris-based bandleader Kate Stables, today announced the band’s new album Careful of Your Keepers–produced by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals)–will be released on June 9th, 2023, via Rough Trade Records. The album’s propulsive yet introspective lead single “Inside Outside” finds Stables as magnetic as ever, joined once again by her stalwart band of Rozi Plain(bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), and Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums), and accented by a cascading horn quartet arrangement by Jesse Vernon.
Careful Of Your Keepers is daring and soft, cutting and warm–a wild feat of complexity and combined dispositions. There’s a shared language of the band’s family experience that is as audible as ever in these recordings, which boast beautiful instrumental performances that still leave the nuanced space required for Stables’ vocals to live at the forefront. “The album was nearly called Goodbye Bite. And in a way it still is,” says Stables. “I went for Careful of Your Keepers in the end. It’s one of my favourite songs on the album, a song that for me holds the general feeling of the album as a whole. The fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward.”
Guiding the ship through changing seas is producer Rhys. Stables described his role as being a “tonesetter,” watchful and attentive to the band dynamics while making sure to always follow a hunch for where a new sound could find its place in the recording. “I’ve always loved the idea of working with him somehow, and when this album started getting planned, I realized that maybe this was my chance to reach out and see if he was up for working together,” Stables explains. “And he was! As if that wasn’t enough, he was also up for doing a bit of singing on the record, which totally blew my mind and made my year. His way with harmony and melody and the tone and quality of his voice is a totally killer combo.”
“They are so ridiculously talented–and every member is a great producer in their own right–so it was just a matter of trying to capture the magic they make when playing live together,” Rhys says of the recording process. “Their playing is by default so thoughtful and complimentary in terms of respect to each other’s parts and to the integrity of the songs themselves that it creates a beautiful foundation of often cosmic interplay that’s always in aid of Kate’s voice and vision as a songwriter.”
Careful Of Your Keepers is daring and soft, cutting and warm–a wild feat of complexity and combined dispositions. There’s a shared language of the band’s family experience that is as audible as ever in these recordings, which boast beautiful instrumental performances that still leave the nuanced space required for Stables’ vocals to live at the forefront. “The album was nearly called Goodbye Bite. And in a way it still is,” says Stables. “I went for Careful of Your Keepers in the end. It’s one of my favourite songs on the album, a song that for me holds the general feeling of the album as a whole. The fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward.”
Guiding the ship through changing seas is producer Rhys. Stables described his role as being a “tonesetter,” watchful and attentive to the band dynamics while making sure to always follow a hunch for where a new sound could find its place in the recording. “I’ve always loved the idea of working with him somehow, and when this album started getting planned, I realized that maybe this was my chance to reach out and see if he was up for working together,” Stables explains. “And he was! As if that wasn’t enough, he was also up for doing a bit of singing on the record, which totally blew my mind and made my year. His way with harmony and melody and the tone and quality of his voice is a totally killer combo.”
“They are so ridiculously talented–and every member is a great producer in their own right–so it was just a matter of trying to capture the magic they make when playing live together,” Rhys says of the recording process. “Their playing is by default so thoughtful and complimentary in terms of respect to each other’s parts and to the integrity of the songs themselves that it creates a beautiful foundation of often cosmic interplay that’s always in aid of Kate’s voice and vision as a songwriter.”
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: 'Careful Of Your Keepers' sees Stables in fine form, confidently traversing the waters we're so familiar with from 2020's brilliant 'Off Off On' but mixed up with a hint of Gruff Rhys' wonderfully psychedelic production and a hint of jagged, art-rock groove. It's a perfect development for Stables' song writing, keeping the elements which we've become so fond of but boldly branching into new areas.TRACK LISTING
1. Goodbye Bite
2. Inside Outside
3. Take You To Sleep
4. More Change
5. This Is When The Sky Gets Big
6. Scabby Head And Legs
7. Careful Of Your Keepers
8. Doomed Or More Doomed
9. Stuck In A Room
10. Dibs
Fifth studio album by the Swedish folk duo. Released four years after their previous album, Ruins, it’s probably their most upbeat album to date. The country tinged melodies are embellished with horns and subtle string swells providing a lush backdrop for the sisters’ distinctive vocal harmonizing.
“This is the first record we’ve recorded in Sweden since we made our debut album The Big Black & The Blue 12 years ago! We worked with Swedish producer Daniel Bengtson at his lovely studio Studio Rymden in Stockholm. It was such a fun experience. We really let the recording take time, we didn’t want to rush it.”
“This is the first record we’ve recorded in Sweden since we made our debut album The Big Black & The Blue 12 years ago! We worked with Swedish producer Daniel Bengtson at his lovely studio Studio Rymden in Stockholm. It was such a fun experience. We really let the recording take time, we didn’t want to rush it.”
STAFF COMMENTS
Liam says: Mainstays of modern folk, First Aid Kit are back with their fifth LP 'Palomino' and the first to be recorded in their home of Sweden since their debut 12 years ago. Full of grand and sweeping orchestral vistas and the band's signature vocal harmonies, 'Palomino' another gem in the duo's catalogue!TRACK LISTING
SIDE A
1. Out Of My Head
2. Angel
3. Ready To Run
4. Turning Onto You
5. Fallen Snow
6. Wild Horses II
SIDE B
1. The Last One
2. Nobody Knows
3. A Feeling That Never Came
4. 29 Palms Highway
5. Palomino
Second album from Kit Sebastian, the captivating duo of Kit Martin and Merve Erdem. Those familiar with the band's cult classic 2019 debut,”Mantra Moderne” will instantly recognize their unique sound that blurs the boundaries of world music, jazz and psychedelia. However, “Melodi” sees the band evolve with even more diversity, effortlessly strolling between moods and influences.
“Melodi” is imbued with Kit Sebastian's love of vintage records and world cinema, but it is not a retro homage. It celebrates its influences but is very much a modern record, being simultaneously brand new and retro. This is a credit to the duo's craft as musicians and songwriters, presenting their influences as a circular interaction between the present and the past rather than a linear one.
The album’s range of instrumentation has expanded from the previous record to include zithers, harpsichords, congas, bongos, bulbul tarang, and a mock-up choir on top of the synthesizers, balalaikas, organs, and saxophones. Session musicians and friends were also booked to introduce trumpet and string sections giving the album an added depth and orchestral texture. Despite the added complexity, the album was recorded using the same techniques employed for the previous album with various tape machines, bouncing back between cassette and ¼” tape for practicality and sonic abstraction. To pierce through this abstraction, the vocals are intentionally more expressive. Merve took cues from the Turkish singers of her youth, adding a slightly more melancholic, darker and more reflective style than “Mantra Moderne”. Rooted in observations from everyday life, they speak often about the worlds and thoughts that arise from the end of the night.
Like with many of the best albums, the record seems over all too soon and has you instantly wanting to play it again. On each listen you decide on a track that you think is your favourite from the album only for it to be replaced with a different one on the next listen. The songs and production have hidden depths that seem to evolve and morph the more you devour them. Moments of pure pop, moments to fall in love, moments to contemplate. This journey is rich in musical vitamins and nourishment, but like all the best things still leaves you wanting more.
“Melodi” is imbued with Kit Sebastian's love of vintage records and world cinema, but it is not a retro homage. It celebrates its influences but is very much a modern record, being simultaneously brand new and retro. This is a credit to the duo's craft as musicians and songwriters, presenting their influences as a circular interaction between the present and the past rather than a linear one.
The album’s range of instrumentation has expanded from the previous record to include zithers, harpsichords, congas, bongos, bulbul tarang, and a mock-up choir on top of the synthesizers, balalaikas, organs, and saxophones. Session musicians and friends were also booked to introduce trumpet and string sections giving the album an added depth and orchestral texture. Despite the added complexity, the album was recorded using the same techniques employed for the previous album with various tape machines, bouncing back between cassette and ¼” tape for practicality and sonic abstraction. To pierce through this abstraction, the vocals are intentionally more expressive. Merve took cues from the Turkish singers of her youth, adding a slightly more melancholic, darker and more reflective style than “Mantra Moderne”. Rooted in observations from everyday life, they speak often about the worlds and thoughts that arise from the end of the night.
Like with many of the best albums, the record seems over all too soon and has you instantly wanting to play it again. On each listen you decide on a track that you think is your favourite from the album only for it to be replaced with a different one on the next listen. The songs and production have hidden depths that seem to evolve and morph the more you devour them. Moments of pure pop, moments to fall in love, moments to contemplate. This journey is rich in musical vitamins and nourishment, but like all the best things still leaves you wanting more.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Melodi is a wonderfully evocative mash-up of European pop, classic psychedelia and shimmering easy-listening, brought together with beautifully sung vocal lines, rich production values and hazy, lounge-jazz saturation. A warm and intoxicating listen, bringing to mind any number of cinematic accompaniments.TRACK LISTING
Side 1
1. Yalvarma (Don't Beg) (5:11)
2. Agitate (4:37)
3. Yeter (Enough) (3:42)
4. Melodi (Melody) (part 1) (4:11)
5. Melodi (Melody) (part 2) (1:26)
Side 2
1. Elegy For Love (3:40)
2. Affet Beni (Forgive Me) (3:38)
3. Inertia (3:40)
4. Ahenk (Harmony) (3:30)
5. Please, Don't Take This Badly (4:13)
Kit Sebastian are back with a special stand-alone alone 7” release that presents an appetising taster of what is to follow from their much-anticipated second album. After losing themselves in the magic of the French countryside to record, the band have delivered two gems that we initially thought were a soup on of the said new album. In fact, though recorded during the same sessions, they felt these tracks were best served up as an aperitif to the album.
Francis Lai, Vladimir Cosma, Fikret K z lok, Jane Birkin, and Selda Bacan all served as inspirations during the recording sessions. Though their idols can be heard in ‘Ennui’ & ‘Abandoned’, the fusion of Anatolian Psychedelia, Brazilian Tropicalia, 60’s European pop and psych-folk vibes results in a sound that is drenched in their unique signature style and can only come from Kit Sebastian. The beautiful, heartfelt, longing vocals on both ‘Ennui’ & ‘Abandoned’’, makes it hard for the listener to resist falling in love with the world of Kit Sebastian, and they leave the heart longing even more for their next long player to drop.
Francis Lai, Vladimir Cosma, Fikret K z lok, Jane Birkin, and Selda Bacan all served as inspirations during the recording sessions. Though their idols can be heard in ‘Ennui’ & ‘Abandoned’, the fusion of Anatolian Psychedelia, Brazilian Tropicalia, 60’s European pop and psych-folk vibes results in a sound that is drenched in their unique signature style and can only come from Kit Sebastian. The beautiful, heartfelt, longing vocals on both ‘Ennui’ & ‘Abandoned’’, makes it hard for the listener to resist falling in love with the world of Kit Sebastian, and they leave the heart longing even more for their next long player to drop.
TRACK LISTING
Ennui
Abandoned
Since 2008’s debut album Krülle Bol, This Is The Kit (lead by Kate Stables) have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories, but even by their high standards, Off Off On is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts.
By the end of 2018, the band had finished touring their last album, the talismanic Moonshine Freeze – leading to Kate’s Ivor Novello nomination, but when it came to Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record, her efforts were diverted by an invitation to join The National on the road for multiple tours and TV appearances – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy To Find. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of being in charge of a band or a project – I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”
Richly illuminating and acutely sensitive to the pulses and currents of life, Off Off On shows This Is The Kit overflowing with ideas. In difficult times, it’s a record that feels like a lifeline, moving against the tide, standing against the storm. Keep going.
By the end of 2018, the band had finished touring their last album, the talismanic Moonshine Freeze – leading to Kate’s Ivor Novello nomination, but when it came to Stables’ natural impulse to start the next record, her efforts were diverted by an invitation to join The National on the road for multiple tours and TV appearances – a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy To Find. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of being in charge of a band or a project – I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”
Richly illuminating and acutely sensitive to the pulses and currents of life, Off Off On shows This Is The Kit overflowing with ideas. In difficult times, it’s a record that feels like a lifeline, moving against the tide, standing against the storm. Keep going.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: It's no surprise that 'Off Off On' has already garnered hefty praise from the mainstream music media, with it being a perfectly illustrated collection of skilful songwriting and beautiful performance skills. While Moonshine Freeze and Bashed Out were both stunning, this shows a real maturity and unbelievable advancement of the skills that thrust Staples into the limelight in the first place. An essential addition to any collection.TRACK LISTING
Found Out
Started Again
This Is What You Did
No Such Thing
Slider
Coming To Get You Nowhere
Carry Us Please
Off Off On
Shinbone Soap
Was Magician
Keep Going
Mason Bee (Benet Walsh) presents his newest outing, packed with gorgeous twinkling melodies, grooving basslines and flickering post-rock progressions.
Filled with playful optimism and grooving, hypnotic beats, this is a confident and assured solo outing from long time Plaid member and touring partner, and a perfectly selected mastering enginner in Chris (Ochre) at Melograf mastering.
Gorgous hazy electronics perfect for sitting by the fire or frolicking in a field!
Filled with playful optimism and grooving, hypnotic beats, this is a confident and assured solo outing from long time Plaid member and touring partner, and a perfectly selected mastering enginner in Chris (Ochre) at Melograf mastering.
Gorgous hazy electronics perfect for sitting by the fire or frolicking in a field!
TRACK LISTING
1 There You Are
2 Lumito
3 We Were Kin
4 Star Rover
5 Les Hippocampes
6 Spring Dwindle
7 Liffclang Halo
8 Are You Ok?
9 Zedended
10 Dial
11 State Of Croak
12 Hex
This remix 12" features three unique reworks of Kit Sebastian tracks. Each of the producers featured in this package created their own interpretation of the ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ originals and have taken the duo’s sound into bold new directions. When it came to choosing who should remix Kit Sebastian, Natureboy Flako (Flako / Dario Rojo Guerra) was a producer at the top of the list. Keeping true to the original, whilst leaving his own stamp on the track, his mix adds breakbeat drums and middle-Eastern guitar riffs that transform the track into a more cinematic piece. It sounds like the music from an exotica dive-bar scene in a David Lynch film - which of course, is a very good thing. Producer and DJ Baris K, who was behind the awesome ‘Istanbul 70’ series (re-edits of classic Turkish gems), takes ‘Durma’ in a very different direction. Totally reconstructing the track, his remix has flipped the original and totally run wild. The results are an epic left-field electronic workout. By bringing the spoken-word vocals to the forefront and giving the track a darker industrial vibe, it wouldn’t sound out of place bouncing around the walls of a Berlin basement club at 5am on a Sunday morning. The pairing of Kit Sebastian and Halal Cool J grew after DJing together at the alternative Great Escape party at the Mr Bongo HQ in May 2019. They share a love for dusty old psychedelic Turkish records. Halal Cool J (aka Aly Jamal / Don Leisure) has released records on First World and is a co-member of Darkhouse Family with Earl Jeffers. For his interpretation he has delivered a mix-tape-collage with a hip-hop aesthetic, and rather than focusing on remixing a specific song, he has cut and paste his favourite elements of tracks taken off the band’s ‘Mantra Moderne’ album.
STAFF COMMENTS
Mine says: Featuring a dreamy stomper courtesy of Natureboy Flako, a 10-minute dub beast by the one and only Baris K and, my personal fave, an uber groovy medley by Halal Cool J. More of that please!TRACK LISTING
Durma (Baris K Dub)
Senden Baska (Natureboy Flako Remix)
Kit Sebastian Vs Halal Cool J
‘Mantra Moderne’ is a stunning, contemporary masterpiece that fuses Anatolian Psychedelia, Brazilian Tropicalia, 60’s European pop and American jazz. A must for fans of Khruangbin, Portishead, Arthur Verocai, Goat, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, Os Mutantes, Cortex and co. The duo is formed of Kit Martin, who lives between London and France and plays all instruments on the album, and Merve Erdem, vocalist and multi-disciplinary artist from Istanbul, now based in London. This is their debut album.
The album explores universal themes such as love, loss, decay, language and ideology, mixing three different languages: English, Turkish and French. Written and recorded by the duo - Kit composed all the songs and Merve wrote the lyrics - in rural France during 2018, each song was completed within a 12- hour window, pawning contemplation for spontaneity.
Dubbed by Kit and Merve as ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ in reference to the high-end tube equipment that helped it find its way to 8-track cassette tape. The style owes its sound to narrow tape width, valve distortion, spring reverb, the mixture of high end gear with lo-fi equipment as well as a disregard to the norms of hi-fi studio techniques. All instruments were analogue and no samples were used. The instruments that are used range from tablas to darbukas, balalaikas to ouds, MS20 synths to Farfisa organs and a lot of cuica. The mixing techniques were done on-the-fly, tracking immediately to tape: compression, EQ, delay and reverb;meaning mixing could not be revisited!
The album explores universal themes such as love, loss, decay, language and ideology, mixing three different languages: English, Turkish and French. Written and recorded by the duo - Kit composed all the songs and Merve wrote the lyrics - in rural France during 2018, each song was completed within a 12- hour window, pawning contemplation for spontaneity.
Dubbed by Kit and Merve as ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ in reference to the high-end tube equipment that helped it find its way to 8-track cassette tape. The style owes its sound to narrow tape width, valve distortion, spring reverb, the mixture of high end gear with lo-fi equipment as well as a disregard to the norms of hi-fi studio techniques. All instruments were analogue and no samples were used. The instruments that are used range from tablas to darbukas, balalaikas to ouds, MS20 synths to Farfisa organs and a lot of cuica. The mixing techniques were done on-the-fly, tracking immediately to tape: compression, EQ, delay and reverb;meaning mixing could not be revisited!
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Kit Sebastian's 'Mantra Moderne' is a brilliantly oddball juxtaposition of exotica, international psychedelia and tropical beach vibes, brought together into a swinging haze of lysergic guitar strums and staggering percussion.TRACK LISTING
Senden Baska
Mantra Moderne
Tyranny 20
Pangea
Kuytu
Yanimda Kal
Y R D M B Y D M R D M
With A Sense Of Grace
Durma
TRASH KIT are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping and Bamboo, united by a shared decade of spry musicality that surges through their bodies, hearts and heads with Trash Kit. Their songs once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony and cascades of sung-spoke vocals. This new focus began with their last album ‘Confidence’ (2014) and has now grown into something exhilarating and rapturous. New songs like ‘Disco’ have had their very fabric stretched into smart new shapes, allowing the band to run away with refrains and unlock the dancefloor. Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater Kinney, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalised folk music as on their sincerity of vision.
Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit have released two albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles, this July however they make their most majestic move yet with their resoundingly huge Horizon album. For this album, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realisation. They’ve augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola and cello. Pulling ideas from everywhere between the earth and sky, to push themselves further, to go beyond. Aggs' guitar playing for this album was informed by her love of guitar music from Zimbabwe, her cyclical motifs billow with lean Mbira rhythms. Horwood has similarly approached her drumkit with an untamable freedom, allowing it to breathe as a vivid lead instrument. Trash Kit's music is woven with silence and punctuation, and this is where the resonant, driving bass of Partington fits in. The bass has become now central to shaping the melody of this new collection of songs.
Lyrically the album has edged into an exemplary construct of the personal politic and the profound, quiet, almost unnoticed observations that we all make through each day without realising their true significance. Horizon finds itself abrim with themes, especially the notion of looking to the future, “personally as well as to the future of the band, the future of marginalised people making music, political futures, trying to imagine and re-imagine our world, thinking about what possibility and change sound like” attests Aggs. ‘Coasting’ which opens the album is concerned with “the end of the world and also the afterlife” and was written after Aggs read ‘The Parable of the Sower’ by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. “When all this ends, without warning, where will we be?” sing Horwood and Aggs in robust unison. ‘Sunset’ draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. ‘Dislocate’ on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels’ overlapping vocal magnetism.
Pivotal to this new album, ‘Horizon’ is sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. “‘Horizon’ is quite literal I think, I was thinking about the edge of the earth - how people interpret the planet, how you can sometimes forget the enormity of the world and the universe and how small that can make you feel” Aggs continues. ‘Every Second’ was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit’s tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour (with Thurston Moore, Fendika, Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink). Aggs sheds further light on the songs’ significance: “We played some really big venues on this trip and whilst it was challenging we learnt lots about improvising on stage, how to hold your own in that kind of environment. ‘Every Second’ is about how you never get to actually see yourself play live and how you have to not think about that in order to really embody it? The ‘chorus’ is also about feeling accepted into a scene of ‘serious’ improv music and how that affected our confidence as musicians who get tokenised a lot.”
‘See Through’ sounds pointed and surly, urging us to “transcend, break down” outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington’s bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile ‘Get Out of Bed’ deals with “being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you’ve done enough” Aggs admits. Whilst “the chorus is the flip side looks at how creating something beautiful, cathartic or fun can be an end in itself.” A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make our own definitions, in this case how we can decide what truly makes us feel like we’ve achieved something.
Some of the final lyrics for the album were composed by Horwood for the choral parts on ‘Traffic Lights’. Those include the lines "we play in tune not touching, we play in time not listening, your music inside my body in my heart and my head!" Horwood wanted these lines to highlight her understanding of the musical friendship that she shares with Aggs and Partington, and to draw on “how powerful and good it feels to make something with other people, to sing with other people.” With this album Trash Kit have become intoxicated with collaboration and with Emma Smith and Serafina Steer contributing viola and harp to certain songs, and Dan Leavers adding his saxophone touches to ‘Every Second’, ‘Horizon’, ‘Sunset’, ‘Disco’ and ‘Traffic Lights’ that proves an triumphant decision. It goes further than that though as the band collaborate with their audience too, stepping in time to each other’s impulse, giving and taking cues, building things up from new foundations. Trash Kit’s approach to life as with music is one of openness, inclusion and potential and Horizon is an album with that in dutiful abundance. It is an album that forever listens for the next moment and will meet you once more at the vanishing point.
Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit have released two albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles, this July however they make their most majestic move yet with their resoundingly huge Horizon album. For this album, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band have chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realisation. They’ve augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola and cello. Pulling ideas from everywhere between the earth and sky, to push themselves further, to go beyond. Aggs' guitar playing for this album was informed by her love of guitar music from Zimbabwe, her cyclical motifs billow with lean Mbira rhythms. Horwood has similarly approached her drumkit with an untamable freedom, allowing it to breathe as a vivid lead instrument. Trash Kit's music is woven with silence and punctuation, and this is where the resonant, driving bass of Partington fits in. The bass has become now central to shaping the melody of this new collection of songs.
Lyrically the album has edged into an exemplary construct of the personal politic and the profound, quiet, almost unnoticed observations that we all make through each day without realising their true significance. Horizon finds itself abrim with themes, especially the notion of looking to the future, “personally as well as to the future of the band, the future of marginalised people making music, political futures, trying to imagine and re-imagine our world, thinking about what possibility and change sound like” attests Aggs. ‘Coasting’ which opens the album is concerned with “the end of the world and also the afterlife” and was written after Aggs read ‘The Parable of the Sower’ by the Afro futurist sci-fi writer Octavia Butler, a novel set in an apocalyptic California and featuring a protagonist in search of change and renewal. “When all this ends, without warning, where will we be?” sing Horwood and Aggs in robust unison. ‘Sunset’ draws on similar themes of ending and salvation, and proves equally ruminative. ‘Dislocate’ on the other hand is an upbeat sprint of spinning guitar and piano riffs showcasing both Rachels’ overlapping vocal magnetism.
Pivotal to this new album, ‘Horizon’ is sleeping giant of a title track, forever reaching out and intensifying throughout its lively five-minute lesson in reinforcement. “‘Horizon’ is quite literal I think, I was thinking about the edge of the earth - how people interpret the planet, how you can sometimes forget the enormity of the world and the universe and how small that can make you feel” Aggs continues. ‘Every Second’ was written in the aftershock of Trash Kit’s tour with The Ex on their big convoy anniversary tour (with Thurston Moore, Fendika, Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink). Aggs sheds further light on the songs’ significance: “We played some really big venues on this trip and whilst it was challenging we learnt lots about improvising on stage, how to hold your own in that kind of environment. ‘Every Second’ is about how you never get to actually see yourself play live and how you have to not think about that in order to really embody it? The ‘chorus’ is also about feeling accepted into a scene of ‘serious’ improv music and how that affected our confidence as musicians who get tokenised a lot.”
‘See Through’ sounds pointed and surly, urging us to “transcend, break down” outdated categories and patterns of thought that only restrict. Partington’s bassline plummets heavily to hammer this home, making it one of the most affecting songs from the album. Meanwhile ‘Get Out of Bed’ deals with “being an overachiever and the struggle to overcome self doubt, get motivated, never feeling like you’ve done enough” Aggs admits. Whilst “the chorus is the flip side looks at how creating something beautiful, cathartic or fun can be an end in itself.” A strong undercurrent throughout Horizon concerns itself with the freeing up of power to make our own definitions, in this case how we can decide what truly makes us feel like we’ve achieved something.
Some of the final lyrics for the album were composed by Horwood for the choral parts on ‘Traffic Lights’. Those include the lines "we play in tune not touching, we play in time not listening, your music inside my body in my heart and my head!" Horwood wanted these lines to highlight her understanding of the musical friendship that she shares with Aggs and Partington, and to draw on “how powerful and good it feels to make something with other people, to sing with other people.” With this album Trash Kit have become intoxicated with collaboration and with Emma Smith and Serafina Steer contributing viola and harp to certain songs, and Dan Leavers adding his saxophone touches to ‘Every Second’, ‘Horizon’, ‘Sunset’, ‘Disco’ and ‘Traffic Lights’ that proves an triumphant decision. It goes further than that though as the band collaborate with their audience too, stepping in time to each other’s impulse, giving and taking cues, building things up from new foundations. Trash Kit’s approach to life as with music is one of openness, inclusion and potential and Horizon is an album with that in dutiful abundance. It is an album that forever listens for the next moment and will meet you once more at the vanishing point.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: While this definitely has echoes of the bands whose members it's made up of (sacred paws were immediately obvious), it is clearly more than the sum of its parts. Oscillating between flickering indie-rock, off-piste angular mathy stuff and soaring anthemic orchestral. It's a heady and rich affair, and one that only improves with every listen.TRACK LISTING
01. Coasting
02. Every Second
03. Dislocate
04. Horizon
05. Sunset
06. Bed
07. Disco
08. See Through
09. Traffic Lights
10. Bed (reprise)
11. Window
‘Mantra Moderne’ is a stunning, contemporary masterpiece that fuses Anatolian Psychedelia, Brazilian Tropicalia, 60’s European pop and American jazz. A must for fans of Khruangbin, Portishead, Arthur Verocai, Goat, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze, Os Mutantes, Cortex and co. The duo is formed of Kit Martin, who lives between London and France and plays all instruments on the album, and Merve Erdem, vocalist and multi-disciplinary artist from Istanbul, now based in London. This is the debut single from their debut album.
Dubbed by Kit and Merve as ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ in reference to the high-end tube equipment that helped it find its way to 8-track cassette tape. The style owes its sound to narrow tape width, valve distortion, spring reverb, the mixture of high end gear with lo-fi equipment as well as a disregard to the norms of hi-fi studio techniques. All instruments were analogue and no samples were used. The instruments that are used range from tablas to darbukas, balalaikas to ouds, MS20 synths to Farfisa organs and a lot of cuica. The mixing techniques were done on-the-fly, tracking immediately to tape: compression, EQ, delay and reverb; meaning mixing could not be revisited!
Mantra Moderne was hugely influenced by Italian library soundtracks. The first backwards sound that occurs at 0.26 was an earlier recording of the track that was meant to have been recorded completely over, an example of the amount of mistakes that were present in the recording process that became desirable!
Kuytu is strongly influenced by Turkish Anatolian Rock and Azeri Mugham folk but also the works of someone very important to Kit and Merv, Vagif Mustafazadeh. The lyrics, written in Turkish are about a mysterious figure whose presence brings a heavenly love and joy into the poet’s life. However, his unexpected disappearance leaves a black sorrow in her heart.
Dubbed by Kit and Merve as ‘lo-fi-hi-fi’ in reference to the high-end tube equipment that helped it find its way to 8-track cassette tape. The style owes its sound to narrow tape width, valve distortion, spring reverb, the mixture of high end gear with lo-fi equipment as well as a disregard to the norms of hi-fi studio techniques. All instruments were analogue and no samples were used. The instruments that are used range from tablas to darbukas, balalaikas to ouds, MS20 synths to Farfisa organs and a lot of cuica. The mixing techniques were done on-the-fly, tracking immediately to tape: compression, EQ, delay and reverb; meaning mixing could not be revisited!
Mantra Moderne was hugely influenced by Italian library soundtracks. The first backwards sound that occurs at 0.26 was an earlier recording of the track that was meant to have been recorded completely over, an example of the amount of mistakes that were present in the recording process that became desirable!
Kuytu is strongly influenced by Turkish Anatolian Rock and Azeri Mugham folk but also the works of someone very important to Kit and Merv, Vagif Mustafazadeh. The lyrics, written in Turkish are about a mysterious figure whose presence brings a heavenly love and joy into the poet’s life. However, his unexpected disappearance leaves a black sorrow in her heart.
STAFF COMMENTS
Mine says: A very unique and somewhat irresistible blend of sounds, combining slow grooving bass lines, charming vocals and a good portion of jazz into a psychedelic haze. Delightful!TRACK LISTING
Mantra Moderne
Kyutu
This Is The Kit - the musical project which holds exceptional Paris-via-Bristol songwriter Kate Stables close to its heart - have earned the adoration of peers including Guy Garvey, The National and Sharon van Etten. Their new album and Rough Trade debut, 'Moonshine Freeze', is undoubtedly their most compelling and accomplished to date. Produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, M Ward, Perfume Genius), it began in the immediate wake of its predecessor, 'Bashed Out', when days after coming off tour last November, Stables and her band (Rozi Plain, Jamie Whitby-Coles, Neil Smith and Jesse D Vernon) headed into the studio in Bristol. Aaron Dessner of The National also features on six of the album tracks.
Though the album’s songs were already written before heading into the studio, Stables says she had no fierce vision for how they should sound, preferring to let them take shape with the input of her band and Parish. “I’m not yet someone who says ‘I want this album to sound like an 80’s French nightclub’,” she says. “All I can do is write the songs and then step back from them and see what themes or patterns there are, then bring those patterns out so it’s a coherent piece of work, sonically and in terms of feeling.” Sonically, Moonshine Freeze is a beguiling mixture of great musical sophistication and something more guileless — children’s games, songs, incantations and snatches of nursery rhymes. Stables’ voice too is a remarkable thing: in its angles there lies an exquisite strangeness reminiscent of Will Oldham, Magnolia Electric Co, Robert Wyatt, Karen Dalton.
Though the album’s songs were already written before heading into the studio, Stables says she had no fierce vision for how they should sound, preferring to let them take shape with the input of her band and Parish. “I’m not yet someone who says ‘I want this album to sound like an 80’s French nightclub’,” she says. “All I can do is write the songs and then step back from them and see what themes or patterns there are, then bring those patterns out so it’s a coherent piece of work, sonically and in terms of feeling.” Sonically, Moonshine Freeze is a beguiling mixture of great musical sophistication and something more guileless — children’s games, songs, incantations and snatches of nursery rhymes. Stables’ voice too is a remarkable thing: in its angles there lies an exquisite strangeness reminiscent of Will Oldham, Magnolia Electric Co, Robert Wyatt, Karen Dalton.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Propulsive dual vocal melodies and tenderly treated fuzz guitars punctuate subtle acoustic strums and clashing lo-fi percussion, gradually acquiescing into folky flickering strings and softly accentuated angelic vox. The 11 songs on ‘Moonshine Freeze’ perfectly progress from twee minimalism into hefty, but not overwrought instrumentals. It's a delicate balance to maintain, but it is done flawlessly here.TRACK LISTING
Bullet Proof
Hotter Colder
Moonshine Freeze
Easy On The Thieves
All Written Out In Numbers
Empty No Teeth
Riddled With Ticks
Two Pence Piece
Show Me So
By My Demon Eye
Solid Grease
TRASH KIT have a wild feel for melody, writing songs that pull at the reins with a spontaneous charm. Having formed the band in 2009, Rachel Aggs, Rachel Horwood and Ros Murray have since become the glowing core of London’s DIY underground. Their music is primal yet thoughtful, affirming yet sincere, drawing on the potential of post-punk and the naturalism of an internal folk music.
Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like X-Ray Spex, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is very much their own take on facing forwards. Galloping polyrhythms, overlapping sung-spoke lyrics and entwining guitars are all drawn together into a taut unity, sounding willfully alive. Both Rachels tangle their vocals with each other whilst expressive drumbeats and restless guitar flurries provide the rhythmic drive. Aggs’ guitar playing is as much informed by African fingerstyle patterns as the percussive attitude of various no wave shredders. Horwood approaches her drumkit with an untamable freedom, pushing it into the realm of a vivid lead instrument. Trash Kit's music is full of pauses, woven silence and punctuation too and this is where Ros Murray and her resonant, soulful bass work finds a perfect home.
In 2010, Trash Kit released their self-titled debut album on Upset The Rhythm, which met with critical applause. The Sunday Times called it “tumbling, spirited and joyously nimble”, whilst it reminded The Quietus that “female punk can sound like cocoons cracking open in full fierce sunlight”. Since then Trash Kit have toured Europe several times, recorded two more 7”s and explored other musical projects as members of Golden Grrrls, Halo Halo, Sacred Paws and Shopping most notably.
Writing for their new album, entitled ‘Confidence’, started up again in 2012 and saw the band over the last two years recording sets of songs at DIY recording hub Sound Savers with Mark Jasper. When the basket became full earlier this year, the tracks were then handed over to Canadian musician / sound engineer Sherry Ostapovitch for mixing, before they were mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control etc).
As a follow up to their exuberant debut album, ‘Confidence’ sticks with the “play it all live” pluck we’ve come to expect from Trash Kit. There’s a minimal bent, a lyrical directness, an unadorned ethic that all evokes the sense that the song is being written at the same time as it’s performed. Yet whilst the first album at times felt too fleeting, its succinct songs flashing by so fast, ‘Confidence’ is startlingly more assured, allowing ideas to develop, conclusions to be gathered. Tracks like ‘Hair’, ‘Skin’ and ‘Boredom’ embrace dynamics like never before. Their clatter and chime are complimented through subtler passages of introspection and the occasional noisy breakdown, with snare and cymbals approaching roar. Ros is joined by her previous bandmate Verity Susman (of Electrelane) on a few tracks including the adventurous ‘Shyness’ and lead single ‘Medicine’, lending some fluently inventive saxophone flourishes. It all adds to the heady, sensation of free-falling through the album. A feeling that the horizon has become broader.
‘Beach Babe’ dashes away with the start of the album, “We spent the summer waiting for summer to come, if we keep waiting we’ll be waiting for summer til it’s gone” declares Aggs over some decidedly racing drums, her guitar riff playfully leaping out in front of the rooted low-end. ‘Big Feeling’ is a patchwork rush of staccato chords, elastic bass and brisk drum fills, all set off by the band’s wordless vocalisations which feature on many of the songs when words can’t get close enough. ‘Leaves’ meanwhile is a more tender rumination, beginning with nature: “Sun shines in through the leaves, this warm glow. That way you look at me, I just know” harmonise Aggs and Horwood. Towards the end of the song its title shifts meaning though as we hear that it all “Leaves me speechless, leaves me speechless, try to hide all this but somehow you already know”. This delight in dual meaning is present in the album’s title too, with Aggs admitting that she liked the ambiguity of it. Her diary entry-like lyrics are seemingly spoken to you in confidence and trust, as well as embracing ideas of self-belief.
‘Confidence’ is a robust album with several themes at its heart that keep reappearing. Lyrically the tracks deal with identity, miscommunication, the passing of time and listening closer. Trash Kit are unmatched at making the personal poetic and vice versa, they never become overwrought, they just keep things honest and follow their natural course. Overall a feeling that you must run with the moment and trust in yourself emerges, echoed brilliantly through the instrumentation. There’s a restless energy that abounds, a momentum growing stronger, an alchemy at play between each member of Trash Kit and between each song on ‘Confidence’. It’s this reason why we should listen closer, listen to the sum of the parts, listen to ourselves. One day we’ll find gold where once there was only hope.
Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like X-Ray Spex, The Ex and The Raincoats, their sound is very much their own take on facing forwards. Galloping polyrhythms, overlapping sung-spoke lyrics and entwining guitars are all drawn together into a taut unity, sounding willfully alive. Both Rachels tangle their vocals with each other whilst expressive drumbeats and restless guitar flurries provide the rhythmic drive. Aggs’ guitar playing is as much informed by African fingerstyle patterns as the percussive attitude of various no wave shredders. Horwood approaches her drumkit with an untamable freedom, pushing it into the realm of a vivid lead instrument. Trash Kit's music is full of pauses, woven silence and punctuation too and this is where Ros Murray and her resonant, soulful bass work finds a perfect home.
In 2010, Trash Kit released their self-titled debut album on Upset The Rhythm, which met with critical applause. The Sunday Times called it “tumbling, spirited and joyously nimble”, whilst it reminded The Quietus that “female punk can sound like cocoons cracking open in full fierce sunlight”. Since then Trash Kit have toured Europe several times, recorded two more 7”s and explored other musical projects as members of Golden Grrrls, Halo Halo, Sacred Paws and Shopping most notably.
Writing for their new album, entitled ‘Confidence’, started up again in 2012 and saw the band over the last two years recording sets of songs at DIY recording hub Sound Savers with Mark Jasper. When the basket became full earlier this year, the tracks were then handed over to Canadian musician / sound engineer Sherry Ostapovitch for mixing, before they were mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control etc).
As a follow up to their exuberant debut album, ‘Confidence’ sticks with the “play it all live” pluck we’ve come to expect from Trash Kit. There’s a minimal bent, a lyrical directness, an unadorned ethic that all evokes the sense that the song is being written at the same time as it’s performed. Yet whilst the first album at times felt too fleeting, its succinct songs flashing by so fast, ‘Confidence’ is startlingly more assured, allowing ideas to develop, conclusions to be gathered. Tracks like ‘Hair’, ‘Skin’ and ‘Boredom’ embrace dynamics like never before. Their clatter and chime are complimented through subtler passages of introspection and the occasional noisy breakdown, with snare and cymbals approaching roar. Ros is joined by her previous bandmate Verity Susman (of Electrelane) on a few tracks including the adventurous ‘Shyness’ and lead single ‘Medicine’, lending some fluently inventive saxophone flourishes. It all adds to the heady, sensation of free-falling through the album. A feeling that the horizon has become broader.
‘Beach Babe’ dashes away with the start of the album, “We spent the summer waiting for summer to come, if we keep waiting we’ll be waiting for summer til it’s gone” declares Aggs over some decidedly racing drums, her guitar riff playfully leaping out in front of the rooted low-end. ‘Big Feeling’ is a patchwork rush of staccato chords, elastic bass and brisk drum fills, all set off by the band’s wordless vocalisations which feature on many of the songs when words can’t get close enough. ‘Leaves’ meanwhile is a more tender rumination, beginning with nature: “Sun shines in through the leaves, this warm glow. That way you look at me, I just know” harmonise Aggs and Horwood. Towards the end of the song its title shifts meaning though as we hear that it all “Leaves me speechless, leaves me speechless, try to hide all this but somehow you already know”. This delight in dual meaning is present in the album’s title too, with Aggs admitting that she liked the ambiguity of it. Her diary entry-like lyrics are seemingly spoken to you in confidence and trust, as well as embracing ideas of self-belief.
‘Confidence’ is a robust album with several themes at its heart that keep reappearing. Lyrically the tracks deal with identity, miscommunication, the passing of time and listening closer. Trash Kit are unmatched at making the personal poetic and vice versa, they never become overwrought, they just keep things honest and follow their natural course. Overall a feeling that you must run with the moment and trust in yourself emerges, echoed brilliantly through the instrumentation. There’s a restless energy that abounds, a momentum growing stronger, an alchemy at play between each member of Trash Kit and between each song on ‘Confidence’. It’s this reason why we should listen closer, listen to the sum of the parts, listen to ourselves. One day we’ll find gold where once there was only hope.
TRACK LISTING
01. Beach Babe
02. Medicine
03. Big Feeling
04. Skin
05. Hair
06. Leaves
07. Boredom
08. Cinema
09. Cheshire Cat
10. Teeth
11. Shyness
With Stay Gold, First Aid Kit - sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg – have honed their musical skills and blossomed as vivid storytellers in creating an ambitious 10-song collection. Recorded at ARC studios in Omaha and produced by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk), the duo also enlisted The Omaha Symphony Orchestra to play on the record, with arrangements by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes, Broken Bells, Rilo Kiley). They say of the recording process, “We took new directions and turns with the arrangements, building them up and creating more dynamics, yet always following where the songs wanted to go.”
TRACK LISTING
1. My Silver Lining
2. Master Pretender
3. Stay Gold
4. Cedar Lane
5. Shattered & Hollow
6. The Bell
7. Waitress Song
8. Fleeting One
9. Heaven Knows
10. A Long Time Ago
This entry level compilation features 20 songs from our original 004 cd, plus two bonus cuts, new liners, tons of sleeve scans, photos, and ephemera, all housed in a spot varnished, brick-thick gatefold sleeve. Artists include New Jersey's Toms, Kennet, MO's Trend, NYC's Colors, Treble Boys, and Sponsors, Hollywood's Randy Winburn and Tommy Rock, Des Moines, IA's Luxury, San Antonio's Kids, Connecticut's Bats (featuring a young Jon Brion), and Boston's Tweeds. Attention: In celebration of our Buttons series, you can buy both NUM004 and NUM044 together with our limited edition Power Pop Buttons Pack. This pack includes 32 high quality buttons of varying sizes that feature artists from both Buttons compilations. Act fast because this set is limited to 100 and will never be made again.
TRACK LISTING
1. Green Hearts - Luxury
2. I Need That Record - Tweeds
3. All I Want - Colors
4. You Need Pop - Speedies
5. Like I Told You - Shoes
6. In And Out Of Love - Sponsors
7. Not My Girl Anymore - Bats
8. She's The Girl (Who Said No) - Tweeds
9. Somebody Else's Girl - Randy Winburn
10. One In A Million - Luxury
11. Sun - Toms
12. Countdown - Luxury
13. Rave It Up - Colors
14. 1-2-3 - Speedies
15. Hey Little Girl - Kids
16. Mr. Peculiar - Bats
17. (I Wanna Be A) Teen Again - Toms
18. Not Easy For Me - Bats
19. Julie-Anne - Treble Boys
20. Dream Rocker - Tommy Rock
21. Love I Can't Wait - Sponsors
22. Growing Up American - Colors
23. Hello Mr. Jenkins - Finns
24. Things I Am - Tactics
25. One Kiss - Treble Boys
26. She's Hi-Fi - Trend
27. Forever Through The Sun - LMNOP
28. Good Time Music - Jack Stack A Track
29. Sunshine U.S.A. - Randy Winburn
30. House Of Horrors - Toms
31. Long Time Away - Brat
32. There Goes My Heart Again - Kids
33. (I Feel Like A) Dictionary - Trend
Swedish sisters First Aid Kit have gone from faraway teenage fans covering Fleet Foxes for fun to recording a blue series 7” of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s ‘Universal Soldier’ with Jack White in his Nashville, TN Third Man studios.
This, their second album, was recorded in Spring 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, Monsters Of Folk). From the dynamic title track onwards, the sophomore album is a rich and stirring affair that expands upon the keen and sophisticated country tinged pop of their critically acclaimed debut.
‘The Lion’s Roar’ is a full band record, the Girls’ Father Benkt takes the bass, Mattias Bergqvist drums, while Mogis and Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes, and a cast of Omaha-based musicians round out the sound.
Album closer ‘King Of The World’ features the Felice Brothers, just passing through town during the session, and local hero Conor Oberst, who sings the last verse.
This, their second album, was recorded in Spring 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, Monsters Of Folk). From the dynamic title track onwards, the sophomore album is a rich and stirring affair that expands upon the keen and sophisticated country tinged pop of their critically acclaimed debut.
‘The Lion’s Roar’ is a full band record, the Girls’ Father Benkt takes the bass, Mattias Bergqvist drums, while Mogis and Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes, and a cast of Omaha-based musicians round out the sound.
Album closer ‘King Of The World’ features the Felice Brothers, just passing through town during the session, and local hero Conor Oberst, who sings the last verse.
TRACK LISTING
1. The Lion’s Roar
2. Emmylou
3. In The Hearts Of Men
4. Blue
5. This Old Routine
6. To A Poet
7. I Found A Way
8. Dance To Another Tune
9. New Year’s Eve
10. King Of The World
CD Bonus Track:
11. Wolf
Prodigious Swedish teenagers Klara (16) and Johanna Söderberg (19), AKA First Aid Kit, have been gathering fans apace throughout 2009 since the release of their “Drunken Trees” EP in February.
Spending their formative years drinking from the fountain of American classics – everything from Buffy Sainte-Marie, to the likes of Conor Oberst – it shaped their way with song writing, arrangements and even the use of a second language. Audiences have been falling at their feet, enraptured by their pure, shimmering voices in harmony. Until now they have been rightfully praised for their astonishing cover versions, such as their infamous YouTube phenomenon of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, but First Aid Kit are now unveiling some remarkable songs of their own. The first flourishes can be heard on this masterly debut album, built around the sweeping majesty and almost telekinetic, intricate weaving of their voices. Sounding like the dreamy and spectral nieces of the Indigo Girls or Michelle Shocked coming in from the campfire to settle at the Stockholm kitchen table, the Söderberg’s distil all of their collective influences and make them their own.
Spending their formative years drinking from the fountain of American classics – everything from Buffy Sainte-Marie, to the likes of Conor Oberst – it shaped their way with song writing, arrangements and even the use of a second language. Audiences have been falling at their feet, enraptured by their pure, shimmering voices in harmony. Until now they have been rightfully praised for their astonishing cover versions, such as their infamous YouTube phenomenon of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, but First Aid Kit are now unveiling some remarkable songs of their own. The first flourishes can be heard on this masterly debut album, built around the sweeping majesty and almost telekinetic, intricate weaving of their voices. Sounding like the dreamy and spectral nieces of the Indigo Girls or Michelle Shocked coming in from the campfire to settle at the Stockholm kitchen table, the Söderberg’s distil all of their collective influences and make them their own.
TRACK LISTING
01. In The Morning
02. Hard Believer
03. Sailor Song
04. Waltz For Richard
05. Heavy Storm
06. Ghost Town
07. Josefin
08. A Window Opens
09. Winter Is All Over You
10. I Met Up With The King
11. Wills Of The River