‘Moonshine Freeze’ from This Is The Kit is Eastside Radio’s Album Of The Week. It’s an album of modern British indie-folk, with jazz, country, blues and even afrobeat inflections. Front-woman Kate Stables is hauntingly commanding on vocals, and her toplines are supported by brilliant songwriting and lovely instrumentation.
Stables is originally from Bristol, in the UK, but has lived in Paris for the last 10 years. She has been releasing music as This Is The Kit since 2005 (on various labels: Microbe Records, Dreamboat Records, Brassland Records) and this new album, Moonshine Freeze is her first on the Rough Trade imprint. The full band consists of Rozi Plain, Jamie Whitby-Coles, Neil Smith and Jesse D Vernon.
The songs begin as ideas with Staples working alone, who then allows “them [to] take shape with the input of the band” and producer John Parish (PJ Harvey, M Ward, Perfume Genius). “I’m not yet someone who says ‘I want this album to sound like an 80’s French nightclub’,” Staples says of the process. “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.”
We’ll be bringing you selections from the album all this week on Eastside Radio. You can find out more and buy the album here. You can delve into the band’s back catalogue here. And Eastside Supporters can win copies of the album by tuning into our Eastside Drive programs 4pm-6pm every weekday.