This Is The Kit

In today's fast-paced mid-apocalyptic world it can feel like a waste of time to speak about time at all. Why dwell on the past when we could just live in the present because the future won't shut up about how bad it's going to be?

But with This Is The Kit, the pseudonym of songwriter/banjo strummer/pinhole camera lover/Winchester UK-born Paris dweller Kate Stables, we're going to have to give time just a modicum of consideration. Because not only is Kate still here and making albums of cataclysmic honesty and welcoming tonal embraces, they are continuing to grow, which is probably the only smart way to move forward through time, unless you're one of those shrinkers.

This Is The Kit's music places companionship at a premium, so being welcomed into its space feels like an obvious privilege, on record and in concert hall with her stellar supporting cast of Rozi Plain (bass), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums) and Neil Smith (guitar). And at this current point in our confusing history, continuing to be here at all, to stand tall and make music to gather to, that's a heroic act. Joyful survival as an act of time-wasting, I'll take that any day of the week. Look to This Is The Kit to spend at least one day of your week this year, I guarantee it will be time well wasted.

The concept of home haunts This Is the Kit’s tender, thoughtful seventh studio album, Ghost Coat (2027). “I was interested in exploring our relationship with home,” says frontwoman Kate Stables. “Where home is, or was, where we come from, where we’re going. Sometimes it’s just where you put your bag down, especially for someone who travels a lot. Maybe it’s less to do with a place, and more who you’re with – people that make you feel like you’re at home.”

Ghost Coat captures the feeling that, no matter where we are in the world, homesickness can strike at any moment. “Quite often, if I find myself in a new place,” says Stables, “I’ll be really happy to be there, but then I always miss somewhere else which is tugging me away.” On Lamp Post, she sings: “I miss the city but I also miss the mountains and I also miss the sea.” This sense of yearning for someplace just out of reach infuses the album, which grapples with themes of human connection and the complex intertwining of loneliness, solitude and isolation.

Friendship and community are at the heart of the record. Opener Safety Valve eases us in with the warm, mellifluous tones of Richard Dawson singing alongside Stables, exalting “the bravery of friendship… someone who is pleased to see you”. It’s a polyphonic album, incorporating the voices and contributions of collaborators including Sam Amidon, guitarist brothers Valentin and Marceau Portron (of Portron Portron Lopez), Ben Howard, and Emma Broughton AKA Blumi.

“I was really keen to not only ask people to sing on the album,” says Stables, “but to make sure that you can hear their individual voices. When you hear the voice of someone that means a lot to you, it can destroy you (in a good way) or can make you feel amazing. It makes me happy hearing all the voices, especially because of the themes of friendship.” Throughout, the voices we hear also include long-standing bandmates Rozi Plain (bass, keys), Neil Smith (guitar), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums, keys) and Jesse D. Vernon (guitar, keys).

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in the Wye Valley, south-east Wales, Ghost Coat is both “very much obviously an album that I’ve made,” says Stables, and “very different” from her previous work. “There’s some foot-tappy ones. Someone famously complained that This Is the Kit didn’t have any choruses – this album has some choruses.” Language, as ever, is as part of the musicality as any of the instruments: repetition, free association and impressionistic imagery give the record a hazy, dream-like quality. References to invertebrates and friendly garter snakes sit alongside quotes from cult mockumentary Best in Show (“catch a big one”)